John's students urinate on staircase and Corpus' sexual ... - Varsity

As Cambridge gets darker, and the Siberian winds howl, you need something to cheer you up • Page 7 

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Cambridge’s most eligible bachelors and a 

chance to win a free ski trip with the 

annual Varsity survey and Skiworld 

The Cambridge student newspaper 9 November 2001 

www.varsity.cam.ac.uk 

SHAMED 

John’s <strong>students</strong> <strong>urinate</strong> on staircase and Corpus’ sexual harassment 

John’s JCR President: Disgusted at public acts of excretion Corpus JCR President: Disgusted at sexual intimidation 

Adam Joseph 

Judith Whiteley 

Drunken John’s <strong>students</strong> were 

individually named and shamed 

in a notice posted in their 

porters’ lodge by the college 

Dean this week. After what one 

John’s student called “a crazy 

night” of revelry and excess, 

involving food fights in hall, 

vomiting, running amok 

around the quads and urinating 

in a college building, the Dean, 

Dr Mackintosh, took the 

unprecedented step of publicly 

exposing the culprits to the rest 

of college. He also listed individual 

punishments appropriate 

to the misdemeanours of each 

offender. 

The notice ordered those who 

were “incapable through drink”, 

to “clean vomit fouled lavatories.” 

Other <strong>students</strong> who 

“allowed their party on 1st 

November to get out of 

hand...are each responsible for a 

week for cleaning the JCR lavatories 

to the satisfaction of the 

lady superintendent’s staff.” 

The party led to vomiting and 

urination by members “of both 

Photo: Julian Blake 

sexes” in the surrounding area. 

Many of the night’s events 

have been linked to the infamous 

Muff Divers. The Muff 

Divers are a St John’s based 

drinking society for second 

years, most of whom are in the 

rugby team. The Muff Divers 

have been in trouble with the 

college authorities before, after 

many of them stripped off, 

exposing themselves, and put 

their boxers on their heads in 

the college bar. They were 

banned from the bar for several 

months and had to display 

• continued on page 2 

Sophie Morphet 

Corpus Christi is reeling after it 

has emerged that 15 to 20 

reported cases of sexual harassment 

have taken place in the 

past ten days. 

It became clear at a JCR meeting 

on Sunday night that up to 

20 female undergraduates had 

complained of sexual harassment 

or intimidation of both a verbal 

and physical nature to various 

members of the JCR committee. 

The majority of the cases are 

believed to be of a less serious 

nature stemming from an 

entrenched sexism in the university 

as has been exposed in a 

recent university-wide report 

which condemned Cambridge’s 

“macho, white culture.” 

The Corpus Women’s Officer, 

Ellen Weavers said that as some 

of the more serious incidents 

were “reported to have taken 

place in and around the bar”, the 

JCR has decided to make it an 

alcohol free zone for a week to 

“prevent any more incidents of 

verbal and physical intimidation.” 

She hoped that this would 

also highlight the fact that this 

Photo: Adam Joseph 

was a “community issue.” JCR 

President, Adrian Ellis said that 

the situation is “serious enough 

to warrant this action; and the 

college community is fully 

behind us.” 

The situation has led to a series 

of meetings between the JCR 

and college officials, including 

Senior Tutor Chris Kelly, in 

order to work out an effective 

strategy of response to the problems. 

In addition to the bar closure, 

a set of letters from 

Women’s Officer, and the Senior 

Tutor were sent out early on 

• continued on page 2 

News Features 4 • Fashion 12 • Science 13 • Visual Arts 18 • Music 20 • Theatre 22 • Film 24 • Sport 28

2 

NEWS 

GrUmpy Grads 

Sophie Morphet 

The debate over the integration of the 

GU and CUSU has become yet more 

heated this week. An anonymous email 

sent to Varsity suggested that 

there has been a “breakdown of communication” 

between the two bodies 

and that “CUSU-GU integration is 

pretty much dead in the water.” 

For the second time this term, the 

council meetings of the GU and 

CUSU took place on the same 

night, making it difficult for 

MCR presidents to participate 

fully in both of the bodies which 

are supposed to represent them. 

CUSU representatives offered 

to attend GU Council but were 

told that this would be “inappropriate.” 

Pav Akhtar, CUSU 

President, comments that 

CUSU were “disappointed” 

with this “but 

respect that this is the 

decision of GU 

Council.” 

A motion was put to the GU council 

asking college MCRs to disaffiliate 

from CUSU and affiliate directly to 

the GU. Pav has lashed out at this 

stance stating “this proposal is damaging 

and divisive and would lead to 

inefficiency.” He adds “this is entirely 

against the spirit of intergration that 

eighty per cent of <strong>students</strong> voted for.” 

However, Raj Joshi, President of the 

GU sees the motion in a different 

light, cutting out the middle 

man of CUSU. 

“We are not asking 

MCRs to disaffiliate 

from 

CUSU, but to 

affiliate directly 

to the Graduate 

Union.” 

A n d r e w 

Peacock, the 

General Secretary of 

GU and the 

President of 

Pembroke 

MCR 

presented the GU’s case as a means of 

attaining a higher level of political 

autonomy. “At the moment we are 

dependent on CUSU; getting money 

directly from the grads would allow us 

to represent their interests better.” 

As for not letting CUSU come to the 

GU meeting on Wednesday, Raj made 

it clear this was not a sign of tension, 

but that the GU wanted to get themselves 

properly sorted out, 

“but we will be inviting 

CUSU to the next 

meeting.” He added 

“no one should 

doubt our commitment 

to have a 

relationship with 

CUSU.” However, 

ultimately he has 

the graduates’ interests 

at heart, saying 

he wants to “do 

what we do best, 

better.” 

Mouse massacre 

Olly Duff reveals that mice would rather listen to cheese 

Cambridge was once again in the nationals 

this week for controversial reasons, 

after University scientists were criticised 

by animal rights protestors for conducting 

“utterly disgusting” experiments on 

mice. 

The experiments involved injecting 

mice with methamphetamine – a strong 

form of speed taken in clubs – and then 

exposing them to loud music either by 

dance band The Prodigy, or Bach’s Violin 

Concerto in A minor. Eleven mice died, 

and many appeared to behave abnormally 

– “jiggling backwards and forwards” to 

the beat, suggesting that that they were 

“being subjected to stress of unmanageable 

proportions.” 

The British Union for the Abolition of 

Vivisection (BUAV) led the attack – campaigns 

director Wendy Higgins branding 

the tests “absolutely despicable” and 

“abhorrent”. 

“Just because people choose to take 

drugs and go to raves doesn’t justify subjectinganimals 

to 

suffering 

and death in 

the laboratory in procedures that will 

tell us nothing we don’t already know: 

taking drugs and listening to excessively 

loud music isn’t good for you.” 

BUAV was also keen to highlight the 

fact that the Cambridge researchers had 

admitted that the tests should not be 

directly related to humans. 

However, head researcher Dr Jenny 

Morton struck back in defence, insisting 

that the study was part of a wider investigation 

into the long-term effects of 

amphetamines, which remain largely 

unknown: 

“If you have an environmental stimulus 

that enhances the toxicity of a drug which 

is taken recreationally, I think that makes 

the research justifiable.” 

A total of 238 mice were used in the 

experiment, and having been given the 

drug or injected with salt water, were 

exposed to silence, white noise or loud 

music. The sound 

dramatically 

affected the 

drugged 

mice, 

causing 

them 

t o 

suffer more brain 

damage from the speed than normal. 

There were both Prodigy and Bach fatalities, 

proving that the nature of the music 

is irrelevant – instead it is the “pulsating 

noise” that is important. The volume used 

was 95 decibels – equivalent to listening 

to a personal stereo at a fairly loud level. 

All the mice were killed at the end of the 

experiment and their brains removed. 

The criticism further fuels the conflict 

between the University and animal rights 

supporters, recently worsened following 

the Department of Trade and Industry’s 

and Lord Sainsbury’s backing for the 

University’s renewed application to build 

a primate research centre. Lord Sainsbury 

stated that the centre was “nationally 

important” in consolidating the UK’s 

position as a “global leader” in neuroscience. 

BUAV stated though: “Cambridge 

University’s application comes at a time 

when the UK should 

instead be aiming for 

the immediate 

elimination 

of 

[these] 

experiments 

on 

both scientific and ethical 

grounds. 

“If Cambridge really 

wants to encourage cutting 

edge, modern and scientifically credible 

research, it should instead invest in 

the development of facilities to progress 

non-animal research techniques.” 

9 November 2001 


John’s cont… 

continued from front page… 

…an open apology letter in the bar. 

The presence of groups like the Muff 

Divers in the bar on regular occasions 

has resulted in what one second year 

called “an intimidating atmosphere, in 

which many college members feel 

uncomfortable”. The <strong>students</strong> responsible 

for the food fight were also part 

of a drinking society. In this case the 

women’s only Sirens, also based in St 

John’s, were hosting the Magdalene 

Wyverns. 

Several John’s <strong>students</strong> have condemned 

their fellow <strong>students</strong>’ behaviour. 

One 2nd year Johnian told 

Varsity, “It’s disgusting. If they had 

done that at school they would have 

been expelled. As it is, they’ve merely 

been told to go and clean up after 

themselves. I can’t believe that at the 

age of 21 they’re still behaving like 

that.” Students have also expressed 

concern that it demonstrates arrogance 

and a lack of respect for college 

staff, who are often left to deal with 

the consequences of student drinking. 

Liz Prochaska, John’s JCR President, 

however, was keen to emphasise that it 

is only a “small section of the college 

that could be accused of getting out of 

hand.” She also believed that the 

actions were “normal student life...and 

if you go into the town on a Friday 

night you will see lots of blokes pissing 

on walls, why should it make a difference 

whether they are blokes or girls 

or whether it is a college wall.” 

Also, in the light of recent national 

media coverage, others at the college 

have questioned the wisdom of the 

Dean’s decision to condemn <strong>students</strong>’ 

antics so publicly. The JCR president 

had an emergency meeting with Dean 

about the “tabloid name and shame” 

tactics used by the college. Members 

of the JCR also observed that “the 

connecting factor in all the publicised 

cases was female intoxication” suggesting 

that college discipline was founded 

on “antiquarian attitudes”. There was 

also no consultation with the JCR 

President prior to the notice being put 

up, despite assurances from the previous 

Dean that any novel disciplinary 

ideas would be subject to dialogue. 

“This was the action of a lone Dean. 

He did not consult the JCR or the 

Senior Tutor,” Liz Prochaska told 

Varsity. Dr Mackintosh has now 

assured the JCR that any such disciplinary 

notices will be sent out by e-mail 

in the future. He declined to make any 

comment to Varsity. 

Rob Jenrick, Academic Affairs officer 

for John’s JCR told Varsity: “The 

debacle has completely unnecessarily 

opened the college and its <strong>students</strong> up 

to the kind of negative and personal 

media attack which St. Catharine’s has 

just suffered. That this has happened 

so soon after the trouble at Catz, when 

it is most likely to cause national interest 

and intrusion into <strong>students</strong> lives 

shows a serious misjudgement of the 

situation. It is symptomatic of the 

sometimes arcane system of discipline 

in so many Cambridge colleges.” 

Corpus cont… 

continued from front page… 

…Tuesday morning. 

Chris Kelly stated in his letter that 

any form of sexual harassment was 

“simply unacceptable” and that he 

shared the “deep concern of the 

JCR/MCR that such behaviour 

should not be tolerated under any circumstances”, 

adding that he was giving 

the JCR/MCR his “full support”. 

The tone of his letter was reinforced 

by his inclusion of Corpus’ longstanding 

statement on “Sexual 

Harassment and other Unacceptable 

Behaviour”. 

This comes in the wake of the ongoing 

animosity between the college 

authorities and <strong>students</strong> at Corpus. 

Adrian Ellis acknowledged this but 

was happy with the way the JCR and 

the college had been able to communicate 

citing the Senior Tutor’s attitude 

including his decision to cancel 

two meetings on Monday to deal with 

the situation as being “to his credit.” 

“Trivialisation, ghettoisation, hysteria 

and vigilantism” are the four main 

areas, other than that the welfare of all 

those involved the JCR President is 

most concerned about. He feels that 

each is a possible outcome of the JCR’s 

measures, but is so far encouraged by 

the response they have had, believing 

an emergency open meeting held on 

Tuesday night on to have been 

“extremely encouraging.” 

The JCR’s response has been met 

with the full backing of the student 

body. At an open meeting on Monday 

night around 120 people were reported 

as attending. A second year female 

Corpus student commented “the JCR 

has kept us quite well informed.” She 

added that she understood the actions 

taken. “I can see why they’re doing it, 

it’s a good idea to show how seriously 

they’re taking it.” Although she said 

she was surprised and shocked at the 

news. “Corpus feels like a very friendly 

college. There doesn’t seem to have 

been any tension.” 

It is hoped that the colleges’ response 

will generate a feeling of community. 

As Ellen Weavers stresses, the JCR’s 

action should change the college’s 

atmosphere for the better “People will 

be looking out for their friends and be 

aware of any upsetting behaviour.” 

As of yet no formal complaints have 

been made. However, the Women’s 

Officer, Ellen Weavers makes it clear 

that the women involved have been 

“made aware of all the support systems 

available.” But added that the members 

of the JCR who had been 

approached were in no position to 

break confidentiality and take the 

matters further. “We cannot force 

that.” 

Adrian Ellis points to the long fight 

ahead, stating “it is only the beginning.” 

He adds that the college is in 

for the long haul in trying to make 

sure a spate of such incidents never 

happens again, “what follows is a complex 

procedure of awareness raising at 

all levels, installing preventative measures 

and supporting all involved – 

those who have or are yet to come forward 

as well as respecting the rights of 

those accused. The urgency is felt 

across the student community in 

Corpus as well as in the fellowship and 

College staff.”

CamPeace, the Cambridge Campaign for 

Peace, has responded angrily to statements 

made by the Labour MP for 

Cambridge, Anne Campbell, attacking 

the organisation. Speaking in the House 

of Commons on 1 November, Campbell 

asserted that CamPeace “has no credibility 

with me, and I hope that it has none 

with my constituents”, drawing attention 

to CamPeace’s vigorous campaigns 

against the Kosovan crisis of 1999, and 

claiming that “CamPeace has never 

accepted that Milosevic could carry some 

guilt for the atrocities in Bosnia and 

Kosovo.” Campbell’s concern was centred 

around the website’s news archive, in 

which she highlighted the presence of 

such articles entitled ‘Was the Serbian 

Massacre a Hoax?’ and ‘Film proves death 

camp photos were lies’. This was evidence, 

she suggested, that CamPeace did 

not ‘even’ accept the justification of 

NATO intervention in “the genocide in 

Kosovo against both Muslims and 

Christians”. CamPeace have emphatically 

denied this allegation to Varsity, stating 

that such a claim ‘is false, and we have 

documentary evidence to prove it.’ This 

evidence is to be found in leaflets distributed 

at the time, which read ‘we abhor 

the atrocities committed by Milosevic, 

but bombing Yugoslavia is not the 

answer.’ 

While Campbell talked of the five hundred 

odd e-mails and letters she has 

received from constituents since the 

NEWS 


3 


CamPeace vs MP 

Katy Long 

bombing, many expressing unease at the 

British involvement in Afghanistan, she 

maintained that while “we wish there 

were an alternative…there is not.” She 

claimed that no one in the constituency 

who has raised concerns with her has suggested 

that “alternative action would be 

effective in unseating the Taliban and 

destroying the terrorist network”, warning 

“I hope people who support 

CamPeace understand what they are supporting.” 

When asked by Varsity what 

CamPeace believed Anne Campbell’s 

motivation for her attack was, Andrew 

Goreing, a CamPeace member, replied: “I 

don’t guess at other people’s motivation.” 

but he did continue to add that “if Anne 

Campbell is intending to close the door 

on any particular constituents…because 

she guesses they have some connection 

with the nefarious CamPeace group…I 

think that would be a pity.” 

In a subsequent statement on the 5 

November Anne Campbell claimed that 

she was ‘delighted’ that her speech in the 

House of Commons had already resulted 

in corrections to the content of the 

CamPeace website. This is despite the 

fact that, as Goreing points out, the only 

alteration to the site other than the posting 

of a response to Anne Campbell’s criticisms 

was the changing of a phrase 

describing Carla del Ponte as ‘Chief 

Persecutor of the International Criminal 

Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’ to 

‘Chief Prosecutor’. CamPeace claims that 

this mistake originated in a simple typing 

error, or at most a “Freudian slip”. 

Photo: Tom Catchesides 

NUS Debt 

Helen McKenna 

The National Union of Students is currently 

experiencing a debt crisis which 

could lead to its bankruptcy. 

The leaking of a confidential NUS document, 

entitled ‘The Report of Short 

Term Savings Committee and 3rd Year 

Budget Group,’ reveals that the union is 

facing major financial problems. The figures 

indicate that the NUS is running at 

a loss of £300,000 and that if it continues 

to spend in this way it may face debts of 

£1.52 million by 2004. 

The report describes budget problems 

such as departments overspending by 

300 per cent and large amounts of 

money being wasted on travel expenses. 

Another excessive outlay, provoking 

widespread criticism, was the NUS annual 

conference which was held earlier this 

year, costing over £300,000. The document 

suggests that £60,000 could have 

been saved by simply reducing the duration 

of the conference. However, overspending 

is not the only cause. Geraint 

Hopkins, the National Treasurer for 

NUS attributed the current problems to 

the financial concerns being experienced 

by university student unions around the 

country, from whom they rely on over 85 

per cent of their income in the form of 

affiliation fees. He explained that “any 

problem with that stream can cause us 

financial headaches.” 

A recent Inland Revenue ruling has also 

had a negative effect on NUS finances. A 

change in VAT status means that the 

union can no longer charge VAT on affiliation 

fees, losing the NUS another 

£100,000 per annum. 

In response to the financial problems 

highlighted by the report, NUS have 

merged the two posts of National 

Director and Deputy National Director, 

and are currently conducting a review of 

administration and print costs. However, 

despite reduced spending, Geraint 

Hopkins promises that NUS services to 

<strong>students</strong> will not be affected. 

CUSU held a referendum in March 

this year in which an overwhelming 

majority voted to remain part of NUS. 

The practical help which NUS provides, 

such as the organization of the National 

Demo on “Grants not Fees” and the 

advice and training for CUSU members, 

led CUSU President Pav Akhtar to consider 

our continued affiliation as advantageous: 

“While we’re not always completely 

happy with the way that the NUS is 

run, we think that they generally provide 

us with a good value service and we’d be 

foolish to give it up.” 

With nearly 750 constituent members, 

the NUS continues to be the only way 

for <strong>students</strong> and student unions to get 

their voice heard regarding national policy. 

Geraint Hopkins emphasized the 

importance of the union for <strong>students</strong>: 

“Ensuring the future of the National 

Union, which has campaigned successfully 

for a review of the Government’s 

disastrous student funding policies, and 

many other areas is essential for <strong>students</strong> 

to be represented in the great national 

debates around education.”

4 

NEWS FEATURES 

MEDIA 

FRENZY 

Varsity’s front page last week highlighted 

a question that all of 

Cambridge has asked at some point 

over the past fortnight: why does the 

world care about Catz? Perhaps a better 

question would be why do newspaper 

editors care? Their usual 

response combines accusations of 

intellectual elitism with world-weary 

claims that only sex sells papers. 

Part of the problem is the short-termist 

attitude caused by the commercialistation 

of the media. It is all too 

easy for editors, especially under the 

pressure of Rupert Murdoch or 

Conrad Black, to forget that, while 

sensationalism and titillation may sell 

more copies on the day, it is news and 

analysis that give a paper its long-term 

reputation. Many editors scarcely 

credit their readers with literacy: no 

news, it seems, can be printed without 

a picture. Similarly, complex 

issues are simplified or eliminated. 

You can see this even in the coverage 

of Catz. Varsity’s comments on outof-touch 

tutors and the fallacy of 

blaming bad results on drinking were 

replaced by mockery of <strong>students</strong> who 

can’t hold their drink. Even important 

issues can seemingly be discussed only 

via personalities: interest in the relationship 

between America and Cuba 

became focused on Elian Gonzalez. 

‘Boring’ aspects of world affairs such 

as the World Trade Organisation, or 

the Rudman Report of Autumn 

1999, which predicted a terrorist 

attack like that of 11th September, are 

glossed over. Politics becomes little 

more than a succession of scandals, 

with only a few half-hearted attempts 

to relate them to wider issues. As New 

York Times writer Frank Rich puts it 

“ideology has nothing to do with 

which scandals get major media 

attention. The only criterion that 

really matters is, is it entertaining 

enough?” 

And since so little attention is given 

to foreign news, the focus is almost 

exclusively on the crises of the day. 

Apart from causing our view of the 

third world to be no more than a succession 

of disasters, it also means we 

forget the effects of Western actions. 

Military action in Iraq and Yugoslavia 

created acres of coverage. But when 

the bombing stopped, the media lost 

interest, and so there is little concern 

over continuing actions. 

As for ‘elitism’, surely the aim of 

newspapers should be to encourage 

public debate. In the Eighteenth 

Century, coffee houses were filled 

with political discussion fuelled by 

the news sheets. In the nineteenth 

century, radical papers such as the 

True Sun and the Poor Man’s Guardian 

employed writers like Charles 

Dickens to explain and to argue. Why 

should it be so much harder now to 

discuss real news? Perhaps editors, 

those at Varsity included, should place 

a little trust in their readers, and write 

about the issues that matter: they can 

be popular without being populist. 

Dan O’Huiginn 

This is the, ‘just’, war, so we are told. 

As each innocent Afghan perishes 

under the air raids of the Coalition, the 

memory of the Twin Towers tragedy 

begins to fade. We all felt the shock of 

the event, we all immediately thought 

of loved ones in the area, and the idea 

of the perpetrators being held to justice 

flashed through everyone’s mind. But 

the war on terrorism took a wrong turn 

somewhere, and now the moral high 

ground is slowly slipping away from 

the Coalition. The decision makers 

have deemed that suitable retaliation 

for the killing of many innocent people 

is…the killing of yet more innocent 

people. 

In an attempt to add some moral 

impetus, Tony Blair is desperately trying 

to gain the backing of British 

Muslim leaders to justify this crusade. 

Sheik abdu Majid al-khoei, Dr MA 

Zaki Badawi and Sheik Fadel Sahlani 

have all had their ears bent by the 

Prime Minister in the last week, but 

how much effect this will have on them 

and the Muslim communities of 

Britain is doubtful. Dr Ghayasuddin 

Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim 

Parliament of Great Britain, described 

Blair’s talks as, ‘ mere pleasantries,’ and 

It’s November and Christmas is nearly 

upon us; the trees are going up in 

Sainsburys, the Santas are lining the 

streets doing their unconvincing Papa 

Noel impressions (thin ones, fat ones, 

some as big as your head) and little 

children look up at shop windows with 

glee and Yuletide spirit twinkling in 

their innocent eyes. And it’s at this time 

of year that one’s thoughts inevitably 

turn to hardcore sex. 

I’m writing this on my way back from 

the bright (red) lights of London town 

after a satisfying meal at the Carlton. It 

was enjoyable on two counts. One that 

I’d come away with four spoons, three 

knives, six inscribed handkerchiefs, two 

coffee cups and a small towel rack. But 

more satisfyingly I met an old friend, 

who I’d been told before hand suffered 

from premature ejaculation, and I 

made a point of arriving thirty minutes 

before I was expected so that I could 

stroll in and say loudly, ‘I’m terribly 

sorry, but I seem to have come early.’ 

However this could just be me playing 

the green eyed monster. After all at 

least my friend has found himself in a 

position where his sexual dysfunction 

can be enjoyed by all. I long ago ruled 

out any possibility of a one night stand, 

believing as I do in the old adage of 

‘never sleep with someone who is 

drunk.’: the problem being that people 

it is not hard to see why he is irate; 

members of his community die each 

day under bombing raids that the 

Prime Minister authorises. 

Tony Blair is a consensus politician. 

The reason that he is the leading politician 

of his time rests in his ability to 

bring people together, to marry differing 

interests, and to persuade others 

that he really believes in their view. 

That is how he has transformed the 

only find me attractive when drunk. 

The correlation between sex and 

drink is ever more acute at Cambridge. 

The media image that we all over 

indulge in the finer things in life also 

extends to carnal pleasure. And this 

image is sadly compounded by our 

union. When I received my Fresher’s 

Pack my eyes were opened to a whole 

new world of sexual possibilities. I may 

be a naive provincial, but it can hardly 

be healthy to give step by step instructions 

as to how to do things to other 

people that could cause long term 

physical damage (wear gloves! use 

glue!). The argument that it is making 

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Blair’s divided society 

Adrian Shankar on the choice between country and faith the war is forcing upon British Muslims 

party of the Left into the party of the 

Centre. To keep the left wing of the 

party happy during this project is an 

incredible political feat. But trying to 

get Muslim backing for this bombing 

campaign might be stretching his abilities 

too far. Most communities bind 

together in times of crisis, so why 

should the Islamic community be any 

different? 

If anything, Muslims seem to have an 

even stronger sense of community than 

most. After the summer riots in the 

north of England, and the violent racial 

incidents that followed the terrorist 

attacks of 11th September, it is not difficult 

to see why British Muslims feel 

under threat. What will increase this 

feeling of discrimination is the lack of 

effort from the Government to resolve 

this problem. The problems in the 

north have arisen because Asian and 

white communities are segregated due 

to social policy, and the rhetoric from 

Home Secretary David Blunkett in the 

aftermath of the riots has not been 

acted upon. One thing is for sure, the 

BNP and the National Front will not 

let the significant electoral progress 

that they made this summer go to 

waste, especially at a time when ethnic 

sure that I do such things properly 

without harming myself is just plain 

silly. In short: never in my wildest 

dreams would I have thought of trying 

to put that ... there before reading my 

‘Freedom’ booklet. Though that cream 

that came in a sachet worked wonders 

on my athlete’s foot. 

The encouragement given to permissiveness 

is part of a wider social problem 

that Britain still has with sex. Apart 

for the page that dealt with ‘individuals 

who chose not to have sex’ (Christians 

and ugly people) the booklet was 

encouraging us to experiment with 

each other. The ‘Friday night’ syn- 

minorities and asylum seekers are high 

on the social agenda. 

The headlines this week have focused 

on British Muslims heading to 

Afghanistan to join the Taliban’s, 

‘jihad.’ Reports from Pakistan suggest 

that the border authorities are struggling 

to prevent people escaping to 

Afghanistan to fight for the cause. 

There is a message in this for Messrs 

Bush and Blair. The increasing oppression 

of an already crippled nation is 

only going to increase the resolve of the 

strong community that they belong to, 

and while it is hard to see what some 

British Muslims joining the jihad think 

they would achieve, their reasons are 

understandable. Omar Mahroo, 

President of the Cambridge University 

Islamic Society, speaks of how British 

Muslims think of Muslims all over the 

world as their, ‘brothers and sisters,’ 

and the Muslim faith does not condone 

the killing of innocents in any situation. 

To tar them with the same brush 

as those of the terrorists is wrong. It is 

with hope that we look to Tony Blair to 

rectify the situation, as lets be honest, 

Bush will not, and remember that 

action against terrorists should not blur 

into action against Islam. 

This article is about sex 

Tim Stanley 

drome has been extended to our relationships 

and we binge on each other 

the way we habitually do on alcohol. 

This is proof of a deep ridden frigidity 

that still permeates the British attitude 

towards sex. The Anglo Saxons have 

always been emotionally immature and 

their is little difference between a person 

who applies electrodes to himself 

to take his mind off sex and someone 

who applies electrodes to himself to 

increase his enjoyment of it. 

I’m all for decadent self indulgence: 

but not when it hurts other people. 

The kind of gratuitous, emotionless sex 

that society encourages men and 

women to indulge in does not lead to 

personal fulfilment and can leave one 

with something far worse than a hang 

over in the morning. For me and all the 

other prudes in Cambridge who find 

Thora Hird ‘a bit smutty’ the arrival of 

the union’s Ikea catalogue of sex was 

not a pleasurable experience. My hands 

still sting from all the Detox I rubbed 

in to them after opening what I 

thought was a large ‘After Eight’ mint. 

For us Christians and ugly people it is 

going to be lonesome this Christmas. 

Which is a pity because on the whole I 

only get vague urges around Bank 

Holidays and Christmas. Call me a 

puritan, but when confronted with all 

this licentiousness and sexual licence 

I’d still rather curl up with a bar of fruit 

and nut and a good book. A dirty one 

that is.

NEWS FEATURES 


5 


Get your chits out for the grads 

John Phillips, President of Magdalene MCR, explains his college’s position on CUSU and Graduate disaffiliation 

Those unimpressed by CUSU have long 

held the opinion that the organisation all 

too frequently shows an approach to 

democracy and student government similar 

to that encountered in countries where 

representative institutions are in their 

infancy and power is wielded by the sort of 

cranky dictator usually referred to as the 

“father of his people”. CUSU’s response to 

Magdalene MCR’s decision to withhold 

payment of this year’s affiliation fee was 

typical of this. Stewart Morris, CUSU 

Services Officer, went straight to the JCR 

President to ask whether he could overrule 

the elected graduate representatives. 

CUSU’s reaction to news that the 

Graduate Union Strategic Review 

Committee has expressed reservations 

regarding the proposed integration of the 

two organisations followed the established 

pattern. Rather than debate the issue, the 

advocates of integration immediately 

resorted to the doctrine of the mandate, 

arguing that last year’s GU referendum, 

which empowered the Executive to enter 

negotiations on the subject, bound the 

Union to accept whatever deal might be 

on offer. CUSU’s opponents were at once 

portrayed as a shadowy clique bent on 

subverting the will of the student body. 

The reality is that it is the CUSU 

bureaucracy that stifles debate and relies 

on both obscurity and apathy to affect its 

ends. So successful have these tactics been 

hitherto that few have any understanding 

of the issues at stake. Affiliation is simply a 

contractual relationship between a com- 

mon room and CUSU, whereby the latter 

undertakes to provide, for a fee, additional 

specified services. Affiliation should not 

be confused with membership. In a recent 

booklet sent to MCR Presidents, CUSU 

explain that disaffiliation entails the forfeiture 

of publications, including the various 

guides and handbooks, and services, 

Photo: Mike Phillips 

including student ID, access to the 

Societies Fair and welfare support. If 

CUSU chooses to act on this statement it 

will place itself in a very dangerous position, 

for it will then almost certainly have 

breached both its own Constitution and 

the very well-known terms of the 1994 

Education Act. It is clear that the services 

CUSU lists in fact consume well over 70% 

of its budget, whereas affiliation fees constitute 

only 14% of its income. Legally, 

CUSU can only deny non-affiliated 

Colleges the services specifically funded by 

the Affiliation Fee, to go further than that 

constitutes unlawful discrimination. 

This prompts a question as to why 

CUSU should make such threats. Could 

the Executive be legally grievously misinformed? 

With the spectacle of Creation in 

view it seems quite possible. Could their 

exaggerated claims be simply scare tactics? 

More likely the origin of the problem is 

the tendency of the CUSU Executive to 

view the Affiliation Fee as an integral part 

of their budget. It seems that they do not 

hypothecate the funds drawn from 

Affiliation and are not actually able to 

explain specifically what the money is 

spent on. This raises questions of accountability. 

One must ask why CUSU has 

been allowed for so long to go on collecting 

a fee without clearly explaining the 

consequences of non-payment. Whenever 

the CUSU Executive do get round to this, 

and they ought not to be permitted by 

CUSU Council to delay, each MCR and 

JCR ought rationally to decide whether 

they receive value for money from CUSU 

for their Affiliation Fee. 

Many of CUSU’s publications may be 

thought superfluous. The value of a manual 

explaining the basics of sexual activity 

is highly questionable for the mature 

adults, many of them married, who come 

here to read for postgraduate degrees. 

In fact the graduate community is very 

different to the undergraduate population. 

Its membership is to a much greater 

degree international, for instance, and far 

more likely to encounter problems relating 

to funding and accommodation. It is not 

impossible that a representative body 

dominated by undergraduates could deal 

effectively with such issues, but it must be 

considered probable that a specialist and 

separate body would be superior. This 

logic underlies the very creation of the 

present Graduate Union, and is to some 

extent acknowledged by CUSU insofar as 

the latter organisation does not, yet, propose 

completely to subsume the former. 

This does, of course, assume that an 

independent Graduate Union would 

manage its funds so as to make itself effective, 

and in the past this has not been the 

case. Integration with CUSU was first 

conceived to address this problem. Under 

current proposals the GU would benefit 

principally by receiving from CUSU twofifths 

of the affiliation fees paid to it by 

graduate <strong>students</strong> through their MCRs. In 

addition the GU President would become 

a CUSU sabbatical officer. The financial 

advantages of this arrangement are obvious, 

though not, it might be thought, to 

undergraduates. However, it is also evident 

that the Graduate Union might equally be 

funded to a similar level if MCRs were to 

affiliate to it rather than to CUSU. Were 

this to occur, the GU could retain complete 

control of its shop and facilities. 

It is clear that CUSU must be shaken 

out of its complacency with regard to both 

Affiliation and Integration with the 

Graduate Union. Neither is a fait accompli, 

and viable alternatives exist to both. The 

opportunity now exists for Student 

Representatives to debate these alternatives 

in a mature and sensible fashion. 

CUSU must participate in this debate 

constructively. If it fails to do so many will 

surely question why the CUSU Executive 

is so keen to champion arrangements the 

merits of which it flinches from explaining 

to its members. 

• letters@varsity.cam.ac.uk

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Uh-Oh, urine trouble 

So, another week and another Dean has used inappropriate measures 

to curb excessive drinking. However, this week, it should be the 

John’s <strong>students</strong> who should be taking much of the blame for the situation 

they are in. It is often said that Cambridge <strong>students</strong> ‘work 

hard and play hard’ and shouldn’t be stopped from drinking or having 

a fun night out. However, in recent weeks this has got out of 

hand. There is a large difference between having a bit of fun and 

damaging property. Getting drunk isn’t an excuse to cause havoc 

and not an excuse to be rude and childish. Yes, the Dean of John’s 

was wrong in publicly humiliating those involved, but what are the 

other options? However often people are told, they haven’t learned. 

Drink, get drunk, it’s part of being a student. We only have a few 

years to humiliate ourselves before entering the real world. But at 

the same time, we have to realise that there are people from the real 

world in Cambridge. The college and University staff and the local 

residents should be treated with respect. They have to live in 

Cambridge and walk the same streets as us. 

Corpus Chris curbs crisis 

The reaction by the <strong>students</strong> and college authorities at Corpus 

Christi to the allegations of sexual assault has been refreshing. The 

college has refused to push the whole affair under the carpet, which 

has to be to their credit. The JCR committee has been prepared to 

discuss the information with the press and their fellow Corpuscles. 

Furthermore, if there is one positive aspect to come from the affair, 

it is that student communications with the college authorities have 

improved considerably. Hopefully the antagonism of last year is 

now in the past. The Senior Tutor, Chris Kelly, apparently cancelled 

all his meetings so he could discuss a suitable response with the JCR 

committee. The college has also taken a very mature approach to 

the media. The JCR decided not to try to keep the affair a secret. 

They e-mailed both student papers early in the week and told us the 

full story. This was wise: as the respective Deans of both John’s and 

Catz should know, nothing remains a secret in Cambridge for long! 

They did this despite the knowledge that sooner or later, the national 

newspapers will pick up on the story. ‘No comment’ answers may 

mean your answers cannot be twisted but they also reduce the possibility 

of getting your own view across. After all the bad press they 

received over the last year Corpus has learnt how to deal with a crisis; 

Varsity suggests that they give lessons to the other colleges. 

Stud-u-like 

As Cambridge gets darker and the Siberian winds start to howl, you 

need something to cheer you up. So we are proud to bring you 

Cambridge’s most eligible bachelors in our exciting new pullout. 

This is your chance to vote for the man you would most like to 

snuggle up with in your tiny college bed. We have looked long and 

hard for this selection of mighty men. Many may disagree with 

Varsity’s selection but all the candidates have achieved something in 

Cambridge, and have one thing in common: desperation. Now it’s 

up to you to go to our website (www.varsity.cam.ac.uk) and vote for 

your favourite. Varsity suggests ‘The Muppets’, but maybe we’re 

biased! 

Varsity Publications Ltd 

Second Floor, 11-12 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA 

Varsity Online: www.varsity.cam.ac.uk 

Advertising: 01223 353422 Editorial: 01223 337575 Fax: 01223 352913 

The Varsity Team 

CUSU debate 

The article in last week’s TCS; 'CUSU 

weathers disaffiliation storm' had me confused. 

Thoughtful comments flooded the 

article from those dissatisfied/disgusted 

with CUSU's current leprosy; what went 

on with the pro-CUSU side, was that really 

the best that could be mustered? JCRs 

are apparently “quite arrogant”; I would 

agree if it was them that thought their 

stance on the war counted for anything. 

JCRs are “guilty of blaming CUSU to 

cover their own faults”; apart from being 

badly worded I would agree if it was the 

JCRs who were providing publications of 

varying merit, and the various other nonservices 

we receive (or not, as the case 

seems to be).It is undoubtedly true that 

CUSU is suffering from “a PR problem”; I 

think that the pro-CUSU spokesman 

proves this admirably! No doubt we'll be 

seeing him in the near future as a Sab. 

Niccy Jones 

Selwyn 

Dainty ducks 

I thought that Leonie Sloman’s piece speculating 

on whether a fungus was responsible 

for women in Salem being accused of 

witchcraft was an interesting and well 

researched article. However one line 

slightly puzzled me. She wrote “Even animals 

misfortunate enough to have been 

fed the poisened bread showed unusual 

behaviour: dogs ripped the bark from the 

trees and ducks strutted peculiarly.” 

Perhaps you can clarify a small point for 

me. How does a duck strut perculiarly? 

Laura Durkact 

Newnham 

Alex Lee is wrong 

I fail to see who Alex Lee has in mind 

when he claims that Cambridge, “has 

become but a lodging house for transients.” 

His suggestion is almost too 

ridiculous to repeat; that <strong>students</strong> no 

longer concern themselves with the issues 

of the day. As far as I can tell, Cambridge 

is one of the most politically active universities 

in the UK. It is curious that he has 

written about the subject of apathy on two 

occasions now, and yet he makes he no 

mention of the many groups that challenge 

the apathy he bemoans. In the last 

couple of weeks alone we have seen 

protests organised by groups such as 

Amnesty International and Cambridge 

Students Against the War. Surely he doesn't 

believe that these people are, “free from 

the worries of the globe”? 

Andrew Kaye 

Emmanuel 

Silly boy 

A simple explanation thought up by a very 

simple mind. I am referring, of course, to 

Navin Sivanandam's letter which states 

that there are several thousand years worth 

of examples to support the claim that 

“men may be more intelligent, more 

ambitious, harder working and better 

leaders than women”. Could this possibly 

be due to the fact that in all but the past 

100 years (if that) women have had very 

little opportunity to demonstrate these 

qualities? It's almost tragi-comic that 

someone intelligent enough to come to 

Cambridge should be so incredibly stupid. 

Emma Chapman 

Christ's 

No barriers 

I feel compelled to rouse myself briefly 

from my apathy and cite a few salient 

points to those of whatever political persuasion 

who seem to believe that this 

If you would like to contribute to Varsity, turn up to a section meeting (times below) at the Varsity offices (unless otherwise indicated) or email a section editor 

Editors Julian Blake, Adam Joseph editor@varsity.cam.ac.uk 

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EDITORIAL 


7 


University discriminates in some way 

against those who come from lower 

income backgrounds. It does not, thank 

you very much. Despite the plumminess 

of my voice – for which I am always gently 

teased – I was actually from one of the 

lowest income brackets in the country. 

Having acquired an assisted place to an 

independent school, as I wanted to read 

Classics and my state school offered neither 

Greek nor Latin, I found no obstacle 

in applying or maintaining my existence 

here. It is perfectly true that more support 

is given to us than to those whose parents 

are wealthy enough to have to front the 

tuition fees. My father, while he was alive, 

was on a pension and accordingly exempt. 

Last June, I lost both my parents in a car 

crash and hve absolutely no means of support 

beyond my loan and as far as I have 

noticed this lack of funding has not resulted 

in my being forced to leave. So please, 

stop whining about how stringent the 

University is, and listen to a pauper for a 

change, instead of a dewy-eyed sentimentalist. 

The only sense in which we are elitist 

is the academic. 

Freddie New 

Queens 

Letter of the week 

With reference to Navin Sivanandam's letter 

entitled Silly Women, 2nd November. 

He states several superior male traits. One 

he does not mention is the male tendency 

to take reckless risks, which he admirably 

demonstrated when he signed his letter. 

Sonia Falaschi-Ray 

Wolfson 

letters@varsity.cam.ac.uk 

The winner of the Letter of 

the Week wins two tickets to 

the Arts Picture House 

News Editors Sophie Morphet, Judith Whiteley news@varsity.cam.ac.uk Mon 4pm 

News Features Editor Michael Phillips newsfeatures@varsity.cam.ac.uk Fri 5pm 

Interviews Editor Natasha Grayson interviews@varsity.cam.ac.uk 

Science Editors Becky Burton, Gabbie Bradfield science@varsity.cam.ac.uk Mon 6pm 

Fashion Editors Emily Haworth-Booth, Katharine Hibbert fashion@varsity.cam.ac.uk 

Outlook Editors Rachael Marsh, Anita Moss outlook@varsity.cam.ac.uk Mon 5.30pm 

Sport Editor Nick King sport@varsity.cam.ac.uk Thu 5pm Jesus 

Arts Editor Rob Sharp arts@varsity.cam.ac.uk 

Theatre Editor Alex Lee, Sarah Legrand theatre@varsity.cam.ac.uk Fri 5pm Bar Ha Ha 

Film Editors Will Bland, Kate McNaughton film@varsity.cam.ac.uk Thu 5pm Sidney P’Ldg 

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Undergraduates 

and postgraduates, from 

all disciplines, are welcome 

CAMBRIDGE MILKROUND 

19/20 NOVEMBER 2001 

If you plan to apply to Data Connection 

and would like to be interviewed during 

our milkround visit, please make sure 

that your application is with us by 

Wednesday 14 November. 

Alternatively, we hold interviews at our office in 

North London all year round. 

You can get further information from your Careers Service, 

or by contacting Denise Crisp at: 

Data Connection Ltd, 100 Church Street, Enfield, Middlesex, EN2 6BQ 

Tel : 020 8366 1177 email: recruit@dataconnection.com

outlook • S2 

Picking up a bloke 

science • 13 

Picking up wind 

interview • 10 

Picking up laughs 

fashion • 12 

Picking up 

the pieces

10 outlook interview 


focus 

fashion science 


Armed and dangerous 

Alexander Armstrong, of ‘and Miller’ fame, tells Sam Baldock some secrets about comedy in Cambridge and beyond 

As I wait to speak to Alexander 

Armstrong, one half of the 

Channel 4 show and now national 

tour Armstrong and Miller, I quickly scan 

over the press release for their stage show 

and am handily (and somewhat arbitrarily) 

informed that Alexander is known to 

his friends as Xander. 

Shit. Social dilemma in the making. 

Have they included this cheeky fact to 

allow us fresh-faced interviewers to get 

chummy from the offset? Or should I 

play it safe and go for the ultra-formal Mr 

Armstrong? In the end I plump for the 

plain hi there approach, but soon realise I 

needn’t have worried about the formality 

of my greeting, for it seems the pair have 

specifically asked to speak to Varsity as ex- 

Cambridge boys, and ‘Xander’ is very 

welcoming and keen to talk about his 

university days, and (unsurprisingly) 

about their show, landing at the Corn 

Exchange later this 

month. 

We quickly get the 

what-and-where’s out 

of the way: Armstrong 

(as a typical Cambridge 

comedian) studied 

English at Trinity while Ben Miller chose 

a more unconventional Natural Sciences 

degree at Catz, even staying on to begin a 

PhD in Quantitative Physics before 

chucking it in to pursue their comedy 

career. Beginning to reminisce about his 

Cambridge years, whether about the illfated 

Cambridge Green Bike Scheme 

whose cycles were promptly borrowed 

and never returned by “some fucker from 

Liverpool in a van”, or about Mario, the 

barman at the Maypole, I quickly notice 

his lack of hilarious thesp-related anecdotes 

about ground-breaking shows or 

kerrazy cast parties. Surprisingly, it seems, 

Armstrong was not particularly involved 

in comedy or theatre whilst at 

Cambridge. “The prospect of being 

funny, of making people laugh”, he 

claims, was too intimidating. The newlyrenovated 

ADC bar may now be all nice 

chrome, wavy lines and sofas but it 

sounds remarkably similar to the bitchy, 

When revealing the government’s 

measures to combat 

terrorism in the aftermath 

of the September 11th 

attacks, David Blunkett, 

the Home Secretary, 

declared that it was the 

job of elected politicians, 

rather than 

unelected judges, to 

protect our rights. 

But he is likely to 

meet resistance 

from libertarians, 

who believe that, if 

left to politicians, 

our civil liberties 

may be among the 

casualties of the war 

on terrorism. 

As director of Liberty, 

the human rights 

campaigning 

group, John 

Wadham is 

fully aware 

of the chal- 

territorial, “are-you-important-enoughto-be-in-here” 

drinking hole he remembers 

from a decade ago. 

Competition at this time was great 

though, with an emerging hotbed of 

comedy talent: the pair were friends with 

Mel and Sue (then Secretary and 

President of Footlights), and there was Mr 

Sacha Baron-Cohen over at Christ’s. It 

was not until his graduating year (1992) 

that a friend roped Armstrong in to write 

for the Footlights Spring Revue, and a 

comedy career was born. After a few years 

of working the circuit, the pair landed 

themselves their television debut with The 

Armstrong and Miller Show on the 

Paramount Comedy Channel, securing 

three more series with Channel 4 after 

that. 

Their TV show has won the pair equal 

measures of critical acclaim, a cult following 

and complaints from TV watchdogs 

Where has all the nudity in Cambridge 

theatre gone? Last year we had tits 

and ass on a weekly basis. 

over their frequent on-screen nudity 

and near-the-knuckle sketches. But 

Armstrong is quick to acknowledge the 

success of many of their TV contemporaries, 

citing The Office and Channel 4’s 

Spaced (the stars of which, Simon Pegg 

and Jessica Stevenson, he lists as his comic 

heroes, along with the Cambridge staples 

Monty Python) as some of the best examples 

of modern television comedy. 

Reassuringly though, he is ready also to 

bemoan the dire state of much modern 

output: Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie and 

new Johnny Vaughan vehicle ‘Orrible 

come under fire – although he admits to 

have not seen the latter – he seems worried 

that “too much stuff these days is trying 

to be Friends”. 

When I ask about the state of British 

TV comedy compared to our US counterparts, 

Armstrong is well practiced in his 

arguments (the pair spoke last year at the 

Oxford Union): “The point is you need 

lenges ahead. He stresses that hasty 

legislation is no way to fight terrorism, 

and says we should learn from the 

rushed 1974 Prevention of 

Terrorism Act. “I 

think it’s very 

important to see 

terrorism 

measures in 

that context. 

If you 

rush, if you 

bend the 

rules, if you 

violate people’s 

rights, 

the danger is 

that innocent 

people are caught 

up in that process. 

That’s one of the reasons 

why we are so 

vehemently against terrorism 

legislation. 

Because what terrorism 

legislation is all about 

is eroding rights.” 

to compare the best of British with the 

best of American. It’s impossible to compare 

The Simpsons with Gimmie Gimmie 

Gimmie.” He concedes that “The 

Americans are very good at wit”, but he is 

very pro-British comedy: “The thing is, 

the Americans don’t have access to our 

class system – we have this pressure cooker 

of petty class issues on a tiny little greyweathered 

island we’re all cooped up in. 

It’s part of the make-up of our national 

character. If we’re going to compare we 

have to use our best, our Dad’s Army, 

Spaced and our Father Ted.” 

Cambridge comedians are riding high at 

the moment – this year’s Perrier winning 

show, Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead, 

starred ex-Footlights President and Vice 

President Richard Ayonade and Matt 

Holness, and the summer’s Footlight’s 

Tour shocked everyone by actually being 

funny, clasping a Perrier Newcomer 

Nomination along the 

way. For Armstrong and 

Miller to make it on TV 

(and indeed film: Ben 

Miller stars alongside 

Steve Coogan in The 

Parole Officer) and then 

return to Cambridge at the swanky Corn 

Exchange with a live show is surely 

encouraging for all our wannabe comedians. 

It sounds as if Cambridge is one of the 

dates in the gruelling 18-venues-in-21days 

tour they are most looking forward 

to: the pair enjoyed success at last year’s 

Trinity Mayball (as their spoof Norwegian 

Eurorock group Striyka) and are keen to 

return to this fair city. They promise a 

rack of new characters and new material – 

and no doubt a lot of nudity, always a 

good reason to see a show. In fact, where 

has all the nudity in Cambridge theatre 

gone? Last year we had tits and ass on a 

weekly basis. Come on the ADC – take a 

leaf out of Armstrong and Miller’s book, 

make it along to their show, maybe to cop 

an eyeful of genitalia but certainly for a 

lesson in making people laugh. I have 

already booked my ticket, and look forward 

to seeing you there. 

Rights or wrong? 

Wadham believes that the laws we 

have already are sufficient to protect 

us. “There is already a criminal justice 

system, the police already do have 

powers to detain people. We say some 

of those powers go to far. But actually 

we have one of the most draconian 

sets of terrorism measures already. We 

don’t need any more.” 

Although the government has now 

said it will not introduce identity cards 

– a victory for groups such as Liberty 

– the lack of opposition and dissent at 

this time worries Wadham. 86% of the 

public did, after all, share the government’s 

initial enthusiasm for ID cards. 

“When something like the US atrocities 

occur, it’s very easy for everyone to 

join together to say ‘something must 

be done and we’ll support everything 

the government does’. But we think 

when there is a lot of consensus 

around changing the rules, often that 

majority gets it wrong. Because it 

doesn’t take into account the rights of 

minorities, even of suspected terrorists, 

because they have rights too.” 

i 

‘Armstrong and Miller Live in 2001’ is at the Corn Exchange 

on 19th November 

John Wadham, director of human rights 

group Liberty, talks to Tosin Suleiman about 

terror, humanity and the British government 

Government plans to suspend part of 

the European Convention on Human 

Rights in order to detain suspected foreign 

terrorists are also unwelcome news 

for Liberty. As Wadham explains, 

“Liberty believes that any bill of 

human rights should be entrenched 

into our constitution and it shouldn’t 

be possible to tinker with it.” He does 

not share David Blunkett’s scepticism 

of judges, as they “have the least 

power”. He adds, “In fact, we’re run by 

the government so I think the stronger 

that parliament becomes and the 

stronger the courts become, the better 

safeguards and protections there are.” 

Wadham feels that this government 

has so far been a fair-weather friend to 

civil liberties. “The high point of the 

government’s commitment to human 

rights was probably around ’97 ’98 

when they were first elected,” says 

Wadham. “They implemented the 

Human Rights Act and saw that it 

limited their freedom, and I think that 

their commitment to human rights 

has eroded since that point.” 

Fearing that it would become a victim 

of its own good intentions, the 

government has now turned its attention 

to issues supported by the majority, 

such as law and order. Wadham 

suspects that this is because “they 

think that wins them votes”. 

What, then, can ordinary people do 

to put human rights back on the government’s 

agenda? What can young 

people do? 

“First of all, everybody should join 

Liberty,” Wadham says without hesitation. 

“We need the money, we need 

people’s membership fees. It is possible 

to join together in groups and to 

make a difference. We certainly know 

that when people are silent, what happens 

is we have draconian legislation. 

Politics is difficult, individuals can’t 

change the world on their own, but 

they can make a difference. And it’s 

absolutely crucial that people understand 

that politics is not about voting 

once every four of five years, it’s actually 

about trying to change the world 

in the mean time.”

SECTION: Quote along here - PAGE ?? 

Issue ??? 20p 

where sold 

Header 

Trailer goes along here with reference 

to PAGE ?? 

Where everything is ?? • More things ?? • Sport ?? 

Header 

Trailer goes along here with reference 

to PAGE ?? 

The Cambridge student newspaper ?? Fullmonth 200? 


(This is what the paper 

would look like without 

<strong>students</strong>. You’re a student. 

Take the hint?) 

Varsity is on the prowl looking for new Section editors, sub-editors, photos editors, online editors and production team. These will all be under a new Dictator (aka Editor). Collect an application 

form from the Varsity offices (11/12 Trumpington Street) from Monday to Friday at any time or print one off from the website (www.varsity.cam.ac.uk). Application deadline is Friday 

16th November at 12 noon. 

Section Editors – If you think you can improve the content of Varsity, running a section is a great way to select exactly what goes in the pages. 

Sub-editors – Think Varsity is full of mistakes? Put it right by becoming a sub-editor, in charge of ensuring the consistency and accuracy of articles. 

Production Team – Ensuring that Varsity looks eye-catching and interesting is an important and challenging role. 

Photos Editors – Get in some photographic practice and get your films developed for free. 

Online Editors – A chance to make Varsity accessible to the world at large. Even CompScis can be involved here! 

And we even feed you (see Listings page 16).

12 outlook interview 


focus 



Sunday morning fever 

When I wake up in my make-up, it’s too early for that dress: Clothes to be hungover in the morning after 

Maybe sex never goes out of fashion, but sometimes I’d rather have a cup of tea. Model: Georgia • Photos: Emily Haworth-Booth • Styling: Katharine Hibbert 

You come in. The sun is up and the birds are singing. People have copies of the Telegraph under their arms. Fuckers. Pull a woolly jumper over your trashy high street dress, shove on a thrift store t-shirt and your boyfriend’s jeans. Make a cup of tea. Put a 

record on. You’ve got nothing to do today, so don’t do anything. T-shirt: New York thrift store. Jeans: Diesel. Leopard print dress: Miss Selfridge. Stillettos: charity shop. Grey jumper: Topshop. Coral dress: vintage shop. Pink slippers: Walthamstow market.

focus 

Breast cancer is the most common cancer, 

affecting one in nine women in the 

UK. Every week, 730 breast cancer 

cases are diagnosed and 250 people die 

of the disease. However, more women 

are surviving breast cancer today than 

ever before, with 74% of women still 

alive five years after contracting the disease. 

This is due in part to many high 

profile publicity campaigns, with 

celebrities such as Geri Halliwell talking 

about their cancer scares, increasing 

awareness and improving the chances 

of discovering the cancer early. 

An exciting development in the battle 

against breast cancer is the advent of 

new vaccines that aim to prevent the 

disease. In fact, this concept is by no 

means new. In the 1890’s, William 

Coley, a general surgeon in New York 

noticed that some patients who developed 

a bacterial infection in the region 

of their tumour actually had a reduction 

in the tumour size. He experimented 

by injecting bacteria into 

tumours and in some cases the tumour 

shrank. This was the first sign that the 

Space junk comes in two forms – 

debris orbiting alongside satellites, 

and "spent" rocket boosters jettisoned 

into the South Pacific by virtually 

every trip into space. Hazardous 

waste from used hardware that has an 

adverse impact on the marine environment 

should not be tolerated 

indefinitely. It is some of the world's 

more powerful nations who allow this 

to happen. The blinkered outlook of 

these nations with respect to the issue 

of space junk is, in my opinion, comparable 

to their deplorable attitudes 

to excess carbon emissions. 

In fact, irresponsible space programmes 

have already begun to reap 

what they have sowed. Space shuttles 

have returned to earth with windows 

damaged by supersonic flecks of 

paint. And that's just from the smallest 

of the particles of the junk float- 



immune system could be implemented 

as a tool against cancer. 

Some of the bacterial agents extracted 

by Coley are now being combined with 

molecules that exist exclusively on the 

surface of cancer cells (Tumour 

Associated Antigen, or TAA) to form a 

kind of vaccine. TAAs may be proteins, 

enzymes or carbohydrates and because 

they are unique to cancer cells, they 

provide a target for the immune system 

to recognise so that it can destroy the 

cancer cells. 

All cells in the body have antigens on 

their surface, but the body recognises 

them and they are not rejected by the 

immune system. If a foreign cell enters 

the body, for example a bacterium, the 

immune system does not recognise the 

cell surface molecules and implements 

an immune response against the bacterium. 

A major challenge to the treatment 

of cancer is that the immune system 

recognises the TAAs as self-antigens, 

so the cancer cells are accepted 

and the body has no defence against 

the cancer. The theory behind the vac- 

ing around our cosmos. When larger 

specimens strike the effects can be 

appalling. In 1996 a French satellite 

was destroyed (creating more 

debris...) by a chunk of Ariane V. 

What will be the fate of space 

exploration once a space-walking 

astronaut is hit by a fuel tank larger 

than he is? 

It’s not enough for space agencies 

to say that they’ll ‘track’ 

space junk, because the effort 

involved in getting a satellite 

to swerve off course is 

inconvenient and expensive. 

And this is not to mention 

damage to scientific experiments 

in space – Hubble continues to be at 

risk. The risk to science, astronauts 

and our terrestrial environment obviates 

the need for a concerted, international 

code of conduct on this matter. 

cines is that a type of TAA from a cancer 

cell is extracted and combined with 

an adjuvant which augments the 

immune response to the TAA, so if a 

cancerous tumour arises then the 

immune system will reject the cells and 

attack the tumour. 

One company leading the field in 

developing vaccines is Oxford 

BioMedica. They have recently developed 

a gene-based vaccine that acts 

upon a TAA known as OBA1. The difference 

between the OBA1 protein and 

other TAAs targeted in the past is that 

it is present in many tumours – 84% of 

breast cancer tumours are labelled by 

OBA1. This means that it is more likely 

to be able to prevent breast cancer. 

Although the vaccine is still in development, 

its effectiveness in inducing an 

immune response against colorectal 

cancer tumours is currently being tested, 

and the results show that the vaccine 

is safe and well tolerated, and give 

a positive indication of its effectiveness. 

Cancer affects the lives of so many 

people in the UK today that these 

developments are likely to have a huge 

effect. It will mean that many cancers 

never even develop. When cancer does 

occur, fewer people will have to go 

through the extreme physical and emotional 

stress of chemotherapy and 

Space junk is a necessary evil. In a 

world where we are dependent on 

mobile phones, weather predictions 

and the Internet, we cannot 

do without missions to 

Space and satellite deployment. 

But most satellites run out of 

the fuel keeping them on the 

correct orbit after 5-6 years. 

The resulting useless satellites, 

and the general waste 

that comes with all technological 

projects, both contribute 

to inevitable junk. 

Fair enough. But why 

don’t we just bring the 

junk down? The answer is 

simple: money. It’s just 

not economically 

viable to remove it all. If 

we expect to have up-to-date technology 

at our fingertips, we can’t afford 

outlook interview 


BEATING BREAST CANCER 

Hannah Fuller reports on the development of vaccines for breast cancer 

The chemistry of farting 

Photo: Sam Dobbin 

Flatulence, passing wind, farting, whatever 

you want to call it, it’s probably not a 

subject you discuss at length. Noises and 

smells cause us acute embarrassment, but 

why do they happen? Just a little bit curious? 

Then read on… 

In short, digestion produces a lot of 

waste gas. Acids and enzymes help the 

body to break ingested food down into 

smaller molecules. Bacteria, and one particular 

bacterium, known as a 

methanogen, can also aid this process, 

breaking down the food into molecules of 

methane. As methane is not a good source 

of energy for the body, it is passed out of 

the body as waste gas. 

Peeerrrpppwwrrpfff. 

But why do farts make that noise? It 

happens as a result of squeezing air 

through a small space. Rather like the 

noise you make if you try to blow air 

through your mouth with your lips 

pressed together, the noise happens as 

waste gas is passed through a ring of muscle 

at the anus. And the smell can’t be 

blamed on methane – that’s an odourless 

gas – but results from other compounds 

made in the digestion process. 

Farting may seem like a silly subject, but 

it has recently attracted media attention 

from the likes of New Scientist. Australian 

scientists have proved that farts could 

spread germs by asking a young boy to 

break wind onto a laboratory dish. The 

following morning all manner of bacteria 

were found growing on the plate. New 

Scientist praised the work as shedding light 

on a little known issue of public health. 

And if you fancy pursuing research in 

this up and coming field, Australia seems 

to be the place to go. Scientists there are 

aiming to develop an anti-farting vaccine 

for livestock, who are believed to make a 

significant contribution to Australia’s 

greenhouse gas emissions. 

Liz Willcocks 

13 

Photo: Sam Dobbin 

radiotherapy. If a successful vaccine 

against cancer is developed then there 

will be huge implications as one of the 

Western World’s biggest killers is obliterated. 

DEBAUCHED IN 

CAMBRIDGE 

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not 

only the Cambridge <strong>students</strong> of 2001 

who involve themselves in acts of 

debauchery. The young Isaac Newton 

of Trinity College was, by his own 

admittance, a very badly behaved student. 

In his diary of 1662 he listed the 

sins for which he sought absolution. 

Some of his more shocking misdemeanours 

involved making pies on a 

Sunday night and swimming in a tub 

on the Sabbath. He also admitted to 

having "uncleane thoughts, words, 

actions and dreamese" and "threating 

my father and mother Smith to burne 

them and the house over them". 

Disgraceful. 

Eat your heart out, The Daily 

Mail… 

Becky Burton and Gabbie Bradfield, 

with thanks to John Brooke 

ETHICS: SHOULD WE MAKE SPACE INTO A JUNK FREE ZONE? 

Don’t be a litter bug, says Jonathan Zwart It’s a necessary evil, replies Becky Burton 

to send missions to remove the byproducts. 

But this doesn’t matter, 

because there is a solution that is 

affordable: space junk is meticulously 

monitored. US space command has 

technology to track and map over 

7000 pieces of junk, some as small as 

a bolt. And that technology is constantly 

being improved – recent projects 

have included space monitoring 

stations. With this information, satellites 

are steered to avert collision. 

Space junk is a problem, but a controlled 

one. A reduction in space junk 

should of course be encouraged in the 

future and the possible introduction 

of xenon as a longer lasting fuel and 

‘microsatellites’ will facilitate this. 

But if we need satellites we get junk. 

Removing it is not a solution, so it is 

being dealt with in the best way possible.

14 

LISTINGS 

FRIDAY 

9 

FILM 

• ARTS: 1.30, 6.00: Nine Lives Of 

Tomas Katz (15). 3.00: Brother 

(18). 8.00: The Man Who Wasn’t 

There (15). 10.30pm: El Mariachi 

(15). 12.45, 3.15, 5.45, 8.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 10.40pm: A 

Hard Day’s Night (U). 12.30: The 

Man Who Wasn’t There (15). 

3.15: The Book That Wrote Itself 

(15). 5.00, 9.10: Sweet Smell Of 

Success (U). 6.50, 11.00pm: Battle 

Royale (18). 

• New Hall: Festival of films on the 

Classics – Cleopatra (1934) 

directed by Cecil B DeMille. New 

Hall, Buckingham House Lecture 

Theatre. 8:30pm. 

MISC 

• CU Jewish Society: ‘Friday Night 

Experience’ – meal + 

entertainment, followed by Culanu 

Oneg. The Student Centre, 3 

Thompsons Lane. 7:30pm. 

• CU Society for Women Lawyers: 

hip-hop night. Members free, nonmembers 

£2. All welcome. 

Cocktails £1.60. Kambar. 9pm – 2 

am 

• Salsa Classes with Nelson 

Batista: www.cambridgesalsa.com 

Abs beg/imp: 6–7.30pm. Int/adv: 

7.30–9pm. St Columba’s Hall, 4 

The 

Lady Margaret 

Players 

Invite 

APPLICATIONS 

for funding to direct in the 

Lent Term in the 

School of Pythagoras 

St. John’s College’s 70 seat 

capacity studio theatre 

Applications Applications & questions questions to: to: 

Louis Louis – ladymargaretplayers@ 

ladymargaretplayers@ 

cusu.cam.ac.uk 

cusu.cam.ac.uk 

CLOSING DATE – 

16th NOVEMBER 

Downing Place (opp Crowne 

Plaza). 6pm. £5 (£4 <strong>students</strong>). 

• Trinity Ents: Hallucin8, house 

and trance, 9pm – 1am, cheap 

drinks, CUSU ID. Trinity College, 

Wolfson Party Room. 9am. £2.50. 

MUSIC 

• CUOperaS & the Bene’t Club: A 

recital of arias and duets from 

Mozart’s operas. Corpus Christi 

College, Chapel. 1:15pm. 

• Jazz At Johns: Jazz At Johns 

Party Event featuring “Something 

Else”. St John’s College, Fisher 

Building. 9pm. £4.50. 

• Jubilation Sound: Roots reggae 

night to raise money for Afghan 

appeal. Robinson College. 8pm. 

£2. 

• Kettle’s Yard Music: Lunchtime 

recital by <strong>students</strong>. Kettle’s Yard. 

1:10pm. 

• Stars of Aviation: Chaotic indierockers 

fumble their way through 

another Friday night. The Boatrace, 

East Rd, nr Grafton. 8pm. £3. 

• The Junction: 70s and 80s Disco 

extravaganza and karaoke bar. 

The Junction, 10–2. 10pm. £3.50 

b4 11. 

THEATRE 

• BATS: Mojo Mickybo: the 

friendship of two young boys in 

1970s Belfast. Queens’ College, 

Fitzpatrick Hall. 9pm. £3 – £4. 

The Broken Line 

Robbie Gringras 

performs 

his new play – exploring the 

contemporary situation in Israel 

@ The CUlanu Centre, 33 Bridge Street 

Wednesday 14th November, 7.30pm 

Tickets £3.50 

To book contact: 

Simon on 366 338 or sae23 

• CADS: A captivating production 

of ‘Ecstasy’. A play by Mike Leigh. 

Christs College, New Court 

Theatre. 7:30pm. £5/£4. 

• The Junction CDC: Love and 

Other Fairytales: Chaucer 

reworked. Rape, power and 

passion. The Cambridge Drama 

Centre, Covent Garden Mill Road. 

8pm. £5.50 disc. 

SATURDAY 

10 

FILM 

• ARTS: 11.00am: Help! I’m A Fish 

(U) (Kids Club). 1.30, 6.00: Nine 

Lives Of Tomas Katz (15). 3.30, 

8.00: The Man Who Wasn’t There 

(15). 10.30pm: Desperado (15). 

12.45, 3.15, 5.45, 8.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 10.40pm: A 

Hard Day’s Night (U). 3.15: The 

Book That Wrote Itself (15). 1.00, 

5.00, 9.10: Sweet Smell Of 

Success (U). 6.50, 11.00pm: Battle 

Royale (18). 


Classics – Iphigenia (1976) 

directed by M Cacoyannis 

(subtitles). New Hall, Buckingham 

House Lecture Theatre. 8pm. 

MISC 

• Cambridge Students Against the 

War: Peace Demonstration. Great 

invite applications for FUNDING and/or use of the Queen’s Building Theatre 

for productions during Lent Term 2002 

DEADLINE – 6pm, Sunday 18th November 

Applications to Laura Pollard in Emmanuel College • For further details e-mail lrp23 

Cambridge 

Student 

Art Exhibition 

Squash 

7–9pm – 15th 

November 

Jesus College Bar 

studentart2002@hotmail.com 

TH ENTS 

presents 

AMNESIA 

Ibiza House and Trance 

Saturday 10th November 

9pm – 1am 

£4 CUSU ID 

Trinity Hall 

Garret Hostel Lane 

CU Gilbert and 

Sullivan Society 

AUDITIONS 

For our Fresher’s Show 

IOLANTHE 

in Week One, Lent Term 

Sunday 11th November 1–6pm 

Queens’ College, Bowett Room 

(Open to anyone who hasn’t sung a 

principal role with us) 

Bring something to sing if you like. 

Non-auditioned chorus. 

Contact: Laura lfb22@cam.ac.uk 

Christ’s Films 

Sunday 11th November 

8pm & 10.30pm 

TRAFFIC 

Thursday 15th November – 10pm 

THE PIANO 

New Court Theatre, Christ’s 

£2 inc. raffle for wine 

www.christs.cam.ac.uk/cfilms/ 



St. Mary’s Church. 11am. 

• CU Ballet Club: Pointe Class [30 

mins] for ‘intermediate’ & 

‘advanced’ level dancers. Kelsey 

Kerridge. 4pm. £50p. 

• CU Ballet Club: Advanced. 

Lasts 1.5 hours. 

www.cam.ac.uk/societies/ballet. 

Kelsey Kerridge, add £2.25 

entrance to KK. 4:30pm. £1. 

• CU Ballet CLub: Intermediate 

(approx.grades 4–6 RAD) 

lasts 1.5 hours. 

www.cam.ac.uk/societies/ballet. 

Kelsey Kerridge, add £2.25 

entrance to KK. 2:30pm. £1. 

• CU Judo Club: Senior graded 

session. Fenner’s Gym. 6pm. 

• The Pembroke College Winnie- 

The-Pooh Society: Elevenses – 

including TEA and CAKE!!! and 

Pooh of course! Emmanuel College, 

Z7. 4pm. 

• Trinity Hall Ents: AMNESIA. 

Ibiza House and Trance. Trinity 

Hall. 9pm. £4. 

MUSIC 

• Bach B-minor Mass: A beautiful 

rendition of this most fabulous of 

works. Trinity College, Chapel. 

7:30pm. £8, £6 (<strong>students</strong>). 

• Christ’s College Music Society: 

Christ’s Voices and Orchestra 

perform Mozart’s final masterpiece: 

the Requiem. Christs College, 

Chapel. 8pm. £6/£3. 

The best sandwiches 

in Cambridge 

• Junction CDC: Wild Style: 

RnB/Hip Hop 10–3. The Junction. 

10pm. £7 adv/£9 door. 

• new cambridge ensemble: 

Haydn-Scena di Berenice, 

Beethoven – Symphony 2. Soprano 

Alexandra Kidgell, Conductor 

Andrew Griffiths. Queens’ College, 

Chapel. 8pm. £3. 

• SJCMS Organ Recital: Benjamin 

Nicholas (Tewkesbury Abbey) plays 

Bach, Franck, Vierne, Daniel-Lesur, 

Prokofiev. St John’s College 

Chapel. 1:15pm. 

THEATRE 

• BATS: Mojo Mickybo: the 

friendship of two young boys in 

1970s Belfast. Queens’ College, 

Fitzpatrick Hall. 9pm. £3 – £4. 

• CADS: A captivating production 

of ‘Ecstasy’. A play by Mike Leigh. 

Christs College, New Court 

Theatre. 7:30pm. £5/£4. 

• CU Black & Asian Cacus: 

Multicultural extravaganza – 

professional African dancers, 

drummers, Indian musicians, 

fashion show. Selwyn College, 

Diamond Room, Cripps Court. 

7pm. £2. 

• The Junction CDC: Love and 

Other Fairytales: Chaucer 

reworked. Rape, power and 

passion. The Cambridge Drama 

Centre, Covent Garden Mill Road. 

8pm. £5.50 disc. 

Corpus Christi College 

The Cambridge Arts Theatre 

& The Fletcher Players 

invite applications from <strong>students</strong> and drama societies 

wishing to stage productions at the newly refurbished 

Corpus Christi College 

Playroom 

10 St Edward’s Passage, during the Lent Term. Application 

forms can be collected from the Porters’ Lodge, Corpus 

Christi College. Forms should then go to: The Theatre 

Administrator, c/o Corpus Christi College. Enquiries to: 

Anna Jones, arj25@cam.ac.uk. The deadline for receipt of 

applications is midday, Friday 16th November. 

and if you love coffee, 

then you’ll love O’Brien’s 

43 Regent St. 6 St. Edward’s Passage 

Cambridge Arts Theatre

PULL 

OUT 

CAMBRIDGE’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS AND THE VARSITY ANNUAL 

SURVEY, WITH THE CHANCE TO WIN A TRIP TO VAL D’ISERE. 

VOTE NOW – WWW.VARSITY.CAM.AC.UK

S2 outlook interview 


focus 



THE RISE OF THE MR MEN 

We don’t know where they hide, we never seem to be able to find them, but that doesn’t mean that Cambridge doesn’t have some serious talent to offer. There 

are some very eligible men around and we have gathered together a select group of them for your delectation. All we want you to do is browse through the profiles 

we’ve given you, have a look at the general impressions we got from meeting them, consider which one makes you drool, and then hurry to the nearest 

computer to log your vote on the Varsity website (www.varsity.cam.ac.uk). We have tried to cater for everyone’s taste, and you can be sure that we have no idea 

of the financial value of any of them. Remember, the guy who gets the most votes will winner a dinner at Browns restaurant with the winner of the most eligible 

bachelorette competition. Rachael Marsh and Anita Moss 

MR MUSCLE 

Name: Tom Edwards-Moss 

Age: 21 

Subject: Geography, 3rd year. 

Three words to describe yourself: 

Moody, deep, motivated. 

If you were an animal what would 

you be?: Tiger. 

Credentials: 

Blues rower, in winning boat this year 

Blues cyclist. 

In ten years time I would like to be: 

Retired in the country. 

Which famous person inspires you?: 

Lance Armstrong. 

At the college bar you would order: 

Pint of lager. 

OUR VERDICT: Definitely a trophy 

pull, but there’s more to him than 

that. Now retired from rowing so 

more time on his hands. Check out his 

thigh muscles – seeing is believing. 

MR SCHMOOTH 

Name: Freddie New 

Age: 21 

Subject: Classics, 3rd year. 


Sporting, like a laugh, alcoholic. 


you be?: Gorilla. 

Credentials: 

U21’s rugby and college rugby last year 

BATS drama 

Vice-President of the Kangeroos 

Drinking Society. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: In a 

bar in the Mediterranean, or realistically 

probably in London. 


The college Dean. 

At the college bar, you would order: 

Gin and tonic or whisky. 

OUR VERDICT: This guy came 

complete with a massive charm offensive 

(“can I buy you a drink laydeez”). 

Though he was also a rugger-bugger. 

MR UNION 

Name: Jeremy Brier 

Age: 21 

Subject: English, 3rd year. 


Intelligent, charming, modest. 


you be?: Buffalo. 

Credentials: 

President of the Cambridge Union 

Stand up comedian 

Occasional theatre reviews for Varsity 

In ten years time I would like to be: 

In a career in politics, with a wife and 

beautiful children. 


Nelson Mandela. 


Gin and tonic or a pint of bitter. 

OUR VERDICT: Assured, non-standard 

union president (lacks pomposity). 

MR HESELTINE 

Name: Robert Jenrick 

Age: 19 

Subject: History, 2nd year. 


Driven, political, cultured. 


you be?: Fox. 

Credentials: 

Conservative Association “political 

mastermind of everything” (treasurer) 

JCR Academic Affairs 

Ex-News Editor Varsity. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: A millionaire 

businessman fighting my first 

election to parliament. 


Lord Curzon (former statesman). 


Scotch. 

OUR VERDICT: Appears to be a 

gentleman and would treat you to a 

nice meal, but you can’t help feeling 

there’s something hidden behind it all. 

MR ARTSY MR MELODY 

Name: Jon Croker 

Age: 20 

Subject: English, 3rd year. 


Tall, enthusiastic, interested. 


you be?: Bear. 

Credentials: 

President of the ADC 

Actor and Director. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: 

Directing gangster films. 


Martin Scorsese. 


Bitter or whisky. 

OUR VERDICT: Nearest you’ll find 

to Russell Crowe in Cambridge, 

declares he is definitely not a thesp, 

but we have our doubts that you can 

spend that much time with them and 

not be contaminated. 

MR DOT.COM 

Name: Roland Swinger 

Age: 20 

Subject: English, 2nd year. 


Innocent, thoughtful, friendly. 


you be?: Chinchilla. 

Credentials: 

Ex-creative director, Varsity 

Professional designer 

Set up internet company. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: not 

retired. 


Tim Burton. 


Jack Daniels. 

OUR VERDICT: Modest and unpretentious 

considering the rumours 

about what he has achieved, motivated 

and interesting, but quite reserved. He 

has an air of quiet, assured confidence. 

Name: Olly Wright 

Age: 20 

Subject: English, 3rd Year. 


Crazy, arty, blond. 


you be?: Cat. 

Credentials: 

St. John’s College Chorister 

First 15 rugby for college 

Squash and football. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: In bed. 


My dad. 

At the college bar, you would order: 

Always bitter. 

OUR VERDICT: Very cool, highly at 

ease, wannabe surfy (see hair). 

Certainly not your archetypal choir 

boy, bit of a groovy dude. 

MR BALLS 

Name: Tim Hall 

Age: 20 

Subject: History, 2nd year. 


Confident, easy-going, happy. 


you be?: Penguin. 

Credentials: 

Blues footballer 

Rugby/cricket for college 

Coach women’s college football. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: On an 

island, or realistically in journalism or 

media. Perhaps a Blue Peter presenter. 


Gary Lineker. 


Pint of Tetley’s. 

OUR VERDICT: Entertaining, easy 

conversationalist, bit of a geezer. Full 

of laid-back charm and very stylishly 

dressed. 

MR PRESIDENT 

Name: Pav Akthar 

Age: 23 

Subject: Did do English and Education. 


Fun, outrageous, sincere. 


you be?: Leopard. 

Credentials: 

CUSU President 

Rowed for Homerton, badminton. 

Comedy and acting. 

In ten years time I’d like to be: A campaigning 

activist to give a voice to 

under represented groups, travelling 

around, possibly in South America. 


Madonna. 


Lemonade. 

OUR VERDICT: Seriously charismatic, 

very friendly, and interesting; 

he’s not in the job for his c.v. 

THE MUPPETS 

Names: Julian Blake (19) and Adam 

Joseph (20). 

Subject: Both SPS, 2nd years. 

Three words to describe yourselves: 

Arrogant, pugnacious, evil. 

If you were animals what would you 

be?: Dung beetles. 

Credentials: 

Varsity editors. 

In ten years time we would like to be: 

Finishing our degrees and owning 

Dojo’s. 


Citizen Kane – we want to own everything. 


Most of it. 

OUR VERDICT: The economy 

option, buy one get one free. Bound 

to woo you with their words, but be 

warned – they don’t get out much. 

VOTE NOW AT www.varsity.cam.ac.uk • VOTE NOW AT www.varsity.cam.ac.uk • VOTE NOW

focus 



The Varsity crossword is sponsored by Joti and Debbie, graduate advisors at Natwest. To win a £10 music/book voucher return 

either completed puzzle with your details to the Varsity offices by 12 noon Wednesday. 

Compiled by Sarah 

Answers to last week’s crossword: 

Cryptic Crossword – Across: 1. runner bean 6. puck 8. tattooing 9. albino 10. bug 11. airmail 12. 

mustang 14. diadem 15. tabard 17. strudel 19. spaniel 21. elm 22. virago 23. manifesto 25. head 26. 

symbolical Down: 1. ramadan 2. number 3. even-handed 4. bit 5. astigmatism 6. prompt 7. confined 

10. blamelessly 13. sabbatical 14. detonate 16. alcohol 18. unwind 20. italic 24. orb 

Quick Crossword – Across: 1. tournament 6. Pact 8. backbench 9. Normal 10. Too 11. Mystify 12. 

Manakin 14. bolero 15. nutmeg 17. Assayer 19. Elevate 21. Air 22. Amoeba 23. Pinocchio 25. Barb 

26.crematoria Down: 1. tsunami 2. Usurps 3. Negatively 4. Mab 5. Necromancer 6. Paella 7. Cackling 

10. typographer 13. Nethermost 14. Basilica 16. Regalia 18. Absorb 20. Alegar 24. ohm 

Last week’s winner was Ilan Kelman (Darwin) – your voucher is at NatWest Benet Street. 

Cryptic Crossword 

Across 

4. Hang Orangeman for harbouring wool (6) 

7. Musical note on a register for type of artist 

(10) 

8. Old flame with European Union Bible leaves 

the stage (6) 

9. Bill resigned before Ted is proved innocent (9) 

11. Devourer of literature? (8) 

15. Reckless queen gives slice of bacon (6) 

17. University head in kick off for Asian name (3) 

18. Henry infiltrates damaged plant’s defence (5) 

19. Take Ulric from distorted circular curve (3) 

20. Energy converter, from Monday, at liberty (6) 

21. Plan to seclude revolutionary with Henry the 

First (8) 

23. Restore head off entreaties, anguished (9) 

25. Erects plan out of confidential matter (6) 

27. Making arrangements for instrument, I chant 

(10) 

28. Anna Palmer’s hiding jellied petrol (6) 

Quick Crossword 

Across 

4. Type of blood vessel (6) 

7. Protection from heat, electricity or sound 

(10) 

8. Gardener’s or bricklayer’s tool (6) 

9. Capital letters (5, 4) 

11. Musical note (8) 

15. The image cast by an object blocking light 

(6) 

17. Resin, tissue surrounding teeth (3) 

18. Striped animal (5) 

19. Mineral from which metal can be extracted 

(3) 

20. One who breathes noisily during sleep (6) 

21. Stubborn (8) 

23. Sign made over stamps (pl.) (9) 

25. Tended, suckled (6) 

27. Going up and down in waves (10) 

28. Was obedient (6) 

Down 

1. Flower (10) 

2. Band headed by Damon Albarn (4) 

3. Gaseous hydrocarbon (6) 

4. Insect of genus Formica (3) 

5. A wandering minstrel (10) 

6. Colour (6) 

10. Land mass surrounded by water (6) 

12. Timidly (10) 

13. Danger (6) 

14. Ban resulting from social custom (5) 

16. Passing (10) 

20. Japanese religion (6) 

22. Soup, unglazed porcelain (6) 

24. Drink made from fermented honey (4) 

26. Useless (3) 

We invite you to a presentation 

on opportunities in Strategic Consulting 

Monday, 12th November 2001, 6:30PM 

The Garden House Hotel 

Christmas Offers 

Full head highlights and a cut 

and finish for an amazing 

£59.50 (normally £90) 

Half head highlights and a 

cut and finish all for £51 

(normally £75) 

A 15% NUS discount 

applies to all other services 

and is available, Monday to 

Friday, all year round 

Crowne Plaza Downing St 

01223 301010 

Offer also available at Atrium Health 

Club, Newmarket Rd 01223 319154 

Special offer is valid Monday to Friday until 8th 

Dec, please bring this ad with you 

The Parthenon Group is an entrepreneurial consultancy engaged in strategy 

advisory and principal investing. 

Parthenon engages primarily in senior advisory work for company chairmen, 

chief executives, and business unit heads. Clients range from FTSE 100 

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cases, Parthenon will take all or a portion of fees in equity in lieu of cash. 

We employ 160 people in our Boston, London and San Francisco offices. 

Parthenon’s London office, which was established in 1997 is growing rapidly. 

To apply please send CV and cover 

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The Parthenon Group 

39 Sloane Street 

London SW1X 9LP 

Telephone: 020 7201 0460 

For more information please see our 

website: www.parthenon.com 

Down 

1. He turns the tables and plays music (4,6) 

2. I am short Greek character or a Bantu warrior 

(4) 

3. Result sabotaged in Northern Ireland (6) 

4. Had food with Primes of America, Turkey and 

England (3) 

5. Vegetables protect grassy turf (10) 

6. Insect on the French river gets the horn (6) 

10. Rail company article on a Church offshoot (6) 

12. Eccentric with an accent active in the old gum 

tree (10) 

13. Choice of potion remedy? (6) 

14. Spectacles in M ‘n’ S for seeing satellites (5) 

16. Growing escape abbreviated by tin gala 

frenzy (10) 

20. Plummy mother and her child (6) 

22. A kiss after endless climb to orgasm (6) 

24. Take the ferry to reach low prices, we hear (4) 

26. Boy stomped, and sped off (3) 

outlook interview 


S3 

GO GIRLS! 

So you’ve seen what talent the men of 

Cambridge have to offer, now it’s time 

for the women. We need two people to 

nominate every individual: let us know 

name, college, e-mail and max. 50 

words on why the nominee should 

qualify as most eligible bachelorette in 

Cambridge. Girls, if you like the look of 

the guys in this issue and wouldn’t 

mind a meal at Brown’s pressure your 

friends to nominate you. Send entries 

to: outlook@varsity.cam.ac.uk 

Closing date Sunday 11th. 

THE PARTHENON GROUP 

London • Boston• San Francisco

The 

annual survey 

Yes! It’s that knee-tremblingly exciting time of year again when we ask you, the readers to speak 

your brains.The annual Varsity survey has come upon us like a fourteen year old’s first wet dream. 

“But wait,” I hear you cry, lips a-trembling with righteous anger,“why should we waste ten minutes of 

our valuable time filling in your poxy questionnaire?”Why? WHY? Because we are offering you the 

opportunity to win a free holiday on the Varsity Ski Trip, with travel, accommodation and ski pass 

all included. Over 1,000 Oxbridge <strong>students</strong> are expected to be going on the trip, the largest ever! 

You could be one of those lucky people who soaks up the sun and snow of Val d’Isere this Christmas. 

“What do I need to do?” I hear you ask. Well, fill in the survey either on our award winning website 

www.varsity.cam.ac.uk or UMS it to Varsity, 11-12 Trumpington St. CB2 1QA. All entries must be completed 

by 16th November 

Background 

Year 

Gender 

Subject 

College (optional) 

E-mail address 

(or you can’t win) 

Work stuff 

How many hours a week do you spend working? 

Less than 5 5-10 10-20 

20-35 35-50 50+ 

How many lectures do you attend a week? 

How many lectures should you attend a week? 

Do you wish you had gone to another University? 

Yes 

If so, which one? 

No 

Politics 

Do you have confidence in CUSU? 

Yes 

How do you rate CUSU? 

No 

Very good Good Average 

Poor Very poor Don’t care 

What do you think of the Cambridge Union? 

Arrogant and elitist 

A good forum for debate 

Who did you vote for in the last General Election? 

Labour Conservative Lib Dems 

Green 

Other 

Didn’t vote 

Should tutition fees be scrapped? 

Yes No 

Are Labour doing a good job? 

Yes No 

Sex 

How many sexual partners have you had? 

Were you a virgin when you came to Cambridge? 

Yes No 

Which of the following have you tried? 

Three (or more) in a bed 

Bondage (anything from scarves to handcuffs) 

Dressing up in a like kinky way 

Sex with an authority figure (lecturer, tutor) 

Sex in a public place (please specify) 

Have you ever been unfaithful? 

Yes No 

Are you: 

Heterosexual 

Homosexual 

Bisexual 

Asexual 

Other (please specify) 

Drugs 

Which illegal substances have you taken and how often? 

Cannabis 

Speed 

Ecstasy 

LSD 

Cocaine 

Other 

(please specify) 

Should cannabis be legalised? 

Yes No 

THE LARGEST INDEPENDENT SKI OPERATOR IN THE UK 

Skiworld are delighted to be associated with this prestigious and long-established 

event. As the UK's premiere snowsports event tour operator, we are sure that all participants 

will enjoy a well organised and efficient in-resort service, and that the skill 

of the organising committee will ensure a GREAT event in the world's best-known 

resort of Val d'Isere. Good luck to all participants, and may the best blue win! 

www.varsitytrip.co.uk 

Never 

Daily 

Weekly 

Monthly 

`Rarely 

Booze & Fags 

How much do you smoke? 

✔ WIN! 

Never Socially 20 a day 

How much do you spend on alcohol per week? 

Nothing less than £10 £10-20 

£20-40 £40-75 £75+ 

How often do you get drunk? 

Never Monthly Fortnightly 

Weekly Twice/week Daily 

Are you a member of a drinking society? 

Yes 

Which one? 

No 

Have you ever had sex under the influence of alcohol… 

Yes 

…And regretted it? 

No 

Yes No 

Lifestyle 

How would you rate the following clubs? 

Very good 

good 

mediocre 

poor 

Cindy’s 

Fez 

Junction 

Life 

Po-na-na 

Toxic-8 

Other 

(please specify) 

How much exercise do you do (hours per week)? 

None 1-2 2-5 

5-10 10-20 20+ 

Never been 

A free ski trip 

to Val d’Isere 

Random stuff 

If you could blow up one thing in Cambridge, what would it be? 

[ 

What is the ugliest college? 

Have you ever been: 

to India? 

to Girton? 

to CUSU Council? 

to The Careers Centre? 

on a demonstration? 

sick in your room? 

drunk in a supervision? 

in love with a beautiful woman? 

Yes 

No 

If Skiworld was able to offer an all-inclusive self-catering price of 

less than £600 for 7 nights snow sports holday in the USA would 

you book it? Yes No 

Fill out your survey right now on 

www.varsity.cam.ac.uk or UMS 

to the Varsity offices (address above) 

The Prize 

Basic Varsity Trip holiday for 2 people for either 8- 

15, 15-22 or 8-22 December. Prize includes return 

travel as available at time of booking and subject to 

agreement with Skiworld, shared self-catering 

accommodation, 6 or 13 day lift ticket and insurance. 

It does not include damage deposits, equipment 

hire, lessons or any other in-resort elements as 

organised by the Varsity Trip Committee. No cash 

alternatives or alternate dates. This competition is 

closed to employees of Skiworld or their families, 

and any member of the Varsity Trip Committee. 

Prizewinners agree to be bound by Skiworld's standard 

terms and booking conditions. 

Entries must reach Varsity by 16 November. 

www.varsitytrip.co.uk 

BOOK NOW!

FILM 

• ARTS: 11.15am: Kandahar (12): 

Free preview for members. 1.30, 

6.00: Nine Lives Of Tomas Katz 

(15). 3.00: Hamlet (2000) (12). 


(15). 12.45, 3.15, 5.45, 8.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 3.15: The Book 

That Wrote Itself (15). 1.00, 5.00, 

9.10: Sweet Smell Of Success (U). 

6.50: Battle Royale (18). 

• Christ’s Films: Traffic. Winner of 

4 Oscars. America’s war on drugs. 

Starring Michael Douglas and 

Catherine Zeta Jones. Christs 

College, New Court Theatre. 8pm & 

10:30pm. £2. 


Classics – Colossus of Rhodes 

(1961) directed by Sergio Leone. 

New Hall, Buckingham House 

Lecture Theatre. 5pm. 

• Queens’ Films: Monty Python’s 

Life of Brian. Discount for members 

of CU Monty Python Soc. Queens’ 

College, Fitzpatrick Hall. 8pm. 

£1.50. 

• Queens’ Films: Monty Python and 

the Holy Grail. Discount for 

members of CU Monty Python Soc. 

Queens’ College, Fitzpatrick Hall. 

10:30pm. £1.50. 

• Robinson Films: Brigit Jones’s 

Diary. Robinson College, 

Auditorium. 7pm & 10pm. £2. 

• St John’s Films: Amores Perros 

(18). St John’s College, Fisher 

Building. 7pm & 10:30pm. £1.80. 

• St John’s Films: Before Night Falls 



• Trinity Film: North By Northwest. 

Hitchcock at his best. Trinity 

LISTINGS 


15 


SUNDAY 11 

MONDAY 12 

College, Winstantley Theatre. 9pm. 

£2. 

MISC 

• CU Kickboxing: suitable for any 

standard – beginners welcome. 

Parkside Community College, same 

side of Parkers Piece as police 

station. 7pm. £2.50. 

• CUJS: Slave Auction for Magen 

David Adom – come and volunteer 

yourself. The CUlanu Centre, 33 

Bridge Street, contact hrr225 or 

ajz23. 4pm. 

• Samatha Meditation: Meditation 

classes in traditional buddhist 

meditation. No charge. Darwin 

College, Old Library. 8pm. 

MUSIC 

• Fairhaven Singers/ Ralph 

Woodward/ Dan Hyde: 

Remembrance Concert: Bach 

Komm, Faure, Brahms, candlelit 

Howells Requiem. Queens’ College, 

Chapel. 8pm. 

• Jazz in the Bar@Churchill: hosts 

the Josh Kemp quartet. FREE! 

Churchill Bar. 9pm. 

• Salsa Dance Night: Pre-Club 

dance class for all levels 7–8pm. 

Club till midnight. 

www.cambridgesalsa.com. 

Sophbeck Sessions, 14 Tredgold 

Lane, off Napier St, (next to Grafton 

Centre). 7pm. £Class+Club: £4. 

TALK 

• MethSoc: Rev Brian Beck leads 

study of the gospel of Luke. Wesley 

Church, nr Christ’s Pieces. 12am. 

THEATRE 

• Footlights: Bar Night. Enjoy 

excellent stand-up, fine music and 

good company! ADC Theatre, Bar. 

7:45pm. £3. 

FILM 

• ARTS: 1.45, 4.15, 6.45, 9.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 2.30, 7.00: Nine 

Lives Of Tomas Katz (15). 5.00: 

Sweet Smell Of Success (U). 9.00: 

The Man Who Wasn’t There (15). 


(15). 6.30: Le P’tit Parigot (PG) Part 

1. 1.00, 9.10: Sweet Smell Of 

Success (U). 

• Trinity Film: North By Northwest. 

Hitchcock at his best. Winstantley 

Theatre. 9pm. £2. 

MISC 

• Belly Dance: Belly dance for 

absolute beginners. Fun and good for 

stress. King’s College, Chetwynd 

Room. 7:30pm. £Concs. 

• Belly Dance: Belly Dance for 

regulars. Powerful form of selfexpression. 

King’s College, Chetwynd 

Room. 6pm and 7:30pm. £Concs. 

• Cambridge University Strathspey 

and Reel Club: Scottish country 

dancing: all welcome St John’s, 

Palmerston Room. 7:30pm. £2. 

• CU Meditation & Buddhism 

Society: Introduction to meditation, 

for relaxation and development. 

Sidney Sussex, Knox-Shaw Room. 

7:15pm. 

• cu yoga society: Ivengar Yoga with 

Philippe. Lucy Cavendish College, 

Oldham Student Bar. 5:15pm. £3.50, 

or termcard for 4 sessions for £10. 

• CUTAZZ: Intermediate/Advanced 

tap classes. Robinson College, Games 

Room. 7pm. £2.50. 

• Queens’ Art Society: Life drawing 

class. Everybody welcome. (Materials 

provided.) Queens’ College, Erasmus 

Room. 7:30pm. £2. 

• Raja Yoga Society: Stressed? 

Remaining free from worry helps 

your study. Inner Space, 6 King’s 

Parade, Tel: 464616. 8pm. 

MUSIC 

• Cambridge University 

Troubadours: Rehearsals for 

performers of mediaeval and 

Renaissance music. Jesus College, 

Octagon Room beneath bar. 7:30pm. 

• Newnham Raleigh Music Society: 

Benjamin Britten The Golden Vanity 

Elgar Violin Concerto (Eleanor Parry). 

Newnham College, Clough Hall. 

8pm. £5/£2. 

TALK 

• CU Biological Society: Genetic 

Analysis of Brain Development-Prof 

Steve Wilson, UCL. Pharmacology 

Lecture Theatre, Tennis Court Road. 

7:30pm £1 non-members. 

• I-SOC: Zionist Dream Fact or 

Fantasy: Dr E Ottolenghi. The CUlanu 

Centre, 33 Bridge Street. 8pm. 

THEATRE 

• Junction CDC: Tiny Dynamite: 

Contemporary – love chaos and 

memory. The Junction. 8pm. 

£5.50 disc. 

TUESDAY 

13 

FILM 

• ARTS: 1.45, 4.15, 6.45, 9.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 1.00, 5.00, 

9.10: Sweet Smell Of Success (U). 

2.50, 7.00: Nine Lives Of Tomas 

Katz (15). 4.30: The Man Who 

Wasn’t There (15). 9.15: Singin’ In 

The Rain (U). 

• Churchill Films: Die Hard. Churchill 

College, Wolfson Hall. 10pm. £2. 

• Corpus Christi College Pictures: 

Seven Samurai. McCrum Theatre, 

Benet Street. 8pm. £2. 

MISC 

• Cambridge Students Against the 

War: Planning meeting. Christs 

College, Z Basements. 8pm. 

• CU Ballet Club: ‘Improvers’ Ballet 

Class. Queens’ College, Fitzpatrick 

Hall. 6pm. £1.50. 

• CU Ballet Club: Jazz Dance Class 

— beginners level. Kelsey Kerridge, 

(+£2.25 entrance to KK). 8pm. £1. 

• CU Judo Club: Senior graded 

session. Fenner’s Gym. 8pm. 

MAY 

ANTHOLOGIES 

2002 

EDITED BY ANDREW MOTION 

AND NICK CAVE 

MICHAELMAS LAUNCH 

• INFORMATION 

ABOUT SUBMITTING 

• LITERARY READINGS 

• SPECIAL GUESTS 

• SEE FUTURE VARSITYS 

FOR FURTHER DETAILS 

28TH NOVEMBER 

7 – 9PM 

BORDERS COFFEE 

SHOP

16 

LISTINGS 


Pavara. Pembroke College, New 

Cellars. 7pm. £3.50 or termcard (4 

sessions) for £10. 


Yvonne. Pembroke College, New 

Cellars. 5:15pm. £3.50 or termcard 

(4 sessions) for £10. 

• CUTAZZ: Beginners jazz classes. 

Emmanuel United Reformed Church, 

Church Hall. 7pm. £2.50. 

• CUTAZZ: Intermediate/Advanced 

jazz classes. Emmanuel United 

Reformed Church, Church Hall. 8pm. 

£2.50. 

• CUWCC (Women’s Cricket): Winter 

nets practice. Every Tuesday (during 

term), 7–9pm. Info: hpl20/rc255. 

Hills Road Sports Centre. 7pm. 

• The Globe Cafe: For international 

<strong>students</strong>,relaxed and informal chat, 

coffee, cakes. Emmanuel College, 

O6 New Court. 7pm. 

MUSIC 

• Britten@25: New Cambridge 

Opera Group: Britten’s The Turn of 

the Screw. Church of St Edward King 

& Martyr. 7:30pm. £8 full view; £5 

restricted view; £5 Student standby. 

• Club Africa: Cools sounds to 

dance to from around the continent. 

Devonshire Arms, Devonshire Road. 

8pm. £2. 

• CU Jewish Society: ‘The Minims’ – 

new singing group with fun and 

diverse music. CUlanu Centre, 33 

Bridge Street. More info: jmr53. 

7pm. 

• The Cheese Factory Jam Sessions: 

Jazz/Funk Jam session. Local 

session/professionals and <strong>students</strong> 

jam night. The Man On The Moon, 

see www.thecheesefactory.co.uk. 

8:30pm. £only 2 quid (1 quid for 

players). 

TALK 

• CU Scientific Society: Tim Radford 

of “The Guardian”: “Science for 

people who don’t want to know 

about science”. Pharmacology 

Lecture Theatre. 8pm. £1. 

• Geoffrey Coombe and friends 

present Jazz record listening 

sessions: Gil Evans without Miles. 

Lecture Room 3, Music Faculty. 

7:30pm. £5 (£4 conc). 

• Inter-Disciplinary Group, Faculty 

of Divinity: David Jasper, Ben 

Quash, and Jeff Leininger: Theatre, 

Literature, and Theology. Faculty of 

Divinity, Lightfoot Room. 4:30pm. 

THEATRE 

• Addenbrooke’s Staff and 

Students: Annual Charity Pantomime 

raising money for new cots for 

babies. Mumford Theatre, Anglia. 

7:30pm. From £4.50 to £6.50. 

• CADS: The Eve of Retirement. 

Christs College, New Court Theatre. 

7:15pm. £5/£4. 

• Footlights: Smoker. Fantastic late 

night comedy! “Intensely 

entertaining…unhyped excellence!” 

(Varsity). ADC Theatre. 11pm. £3.50. 

• Shadwell: William Shakespeare’s 

‘The Tempest’ – magic, music, 

monsters, majesty and dancing girls. 

Caius College, Bateman Auditorium. 

7:45pm. £4. 

WEDNESDAY 

14 

FILM 

• ARTS: 1.45, 4.15, 6.45, 9.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 2.30, 7.00: Nine 

Lives Of Tomas Katz (15). 5.00: 

Sweet Smell Of Success (U). 9.00: 

The Man Who Wasn’t There (15). 


(15). 6.30: Le P’tit Parigot (PG) Part 

2. 1.00, 9.10: Sweet Smell Of 

Success (U). 

• Churchill MCR Film Soc: Traffic 

(also late show at 11pm). 

Churchill College, Wolfson Hall. 

8pm. £2. 

MISC 


Nancy. Corpus Christi College, Party 

Room. 5.15pm and 7pm. £3.50 or 

termcard for 4 sessions 

for £10. 

MUSIC 

• Britten@25: Choir of King’s 

College & Britten Sinfonia Soloists. 

Britten Choral Favourites. King’s 

College, Chapel. 8pm. £5 – £15; £3 

student standby. 




& Martyr. 7:30pm. £8 full view; £5 

restricted view; £5 Student standby. 

• Junction CDC: Medication: Rock 

gig. The Junction. 7pm. 

£7.50/£8.50 door. 

• LEAPS (Live Experimental Arts 

Performance Society): 

Eclectic/experimental 

sounds/words/visuals. Live music: 

Jardin (electronic/post-rock), Rude 

Mechanicals 

(Beefheart/performance), Robyn 

Moroney (poetry). 

http://www.leapsonline.org.uk/. 

Portland Arms, Victoria/Milton Road 

corner. 8pm. £3 (£2). 

• Trinity College Music Society: The 

bass-baritone Oliver Hunt sings a 

concert of songs by Brahms, Finzi & 

Ravel. Trinity College, College 

Chapel. 8pm. £4, £2 & £1 

(members). 

TALK 

• CU TM Society: Introductory Talk 

on Transcendental Meditation. Caius 

College, Senior Parlour. 8pm. 

• MMP (www.mmp.maths.org.uk): 

The disputed garment problem – the 

mathematics of bargaining & 

arbitration: Prof Richard Weber. 

Centre for Mathematical Sciences, 

Email mmp@maths.cam.ac.uk for 

free tickets. 6:30pm. 

• PdOC (Post-docs of Cambridge): 

From Post-Doc to Patents, Dr Fiona 

Bar (Patent Attorney). University 

Centre, 12 Mill Lane, Room 1. 6pm. 

THEATRE 





7:30pm. From £4.50 to £6.50. 



7:15pm. £5/£4. 

• cujs: Robbie Gringras performs his 

new play ‘The Broken Line’. The 

CUlanu Centre, 33 Bridge Street, 

books tickets on 366 338 or sae23. 

7:30pm. 

FILM 

• ARTS: 1.45, 4.15, 6.45, 9.20: The 

Piano Teacher (18). 2.30, 7.00: 

Tears Of The Black Tiger (18). 4.30, 


(15). 1.00, 5.00, 9.10: Sweet Smell 

Of Success (U). 3.00: Carmen Jones 

(U). 7.00: Nine Lives Of Tomas Katz 

(15). 

• Central European Film Club: 

Innocence Unprotected directed by 

Dusan Makavejev. Caius College, 

Bateman Auditorium. 8pm. 

• Christ’s Films: The Piano. Winner 

of 3 Oscars. A passionate tale of 

sexual bargaining. Holly Hunter, 

Sam Neill, Harvey Keitel, Anna 

Paquin. Christs College, New Court 

Theatre. 10pm. £2. 

• Churchill Films: On the Waterfront. 

Churchill College, Wolfson Hall. 

10pm. £2. 

• Queens’ Films: Crouching Tiger, 

Hidden Dragon. Queens’ College, 

Fitzpatrick Hall. 8pm & 10:30pm. 

£1.50. 

• Robinson Films: Man On The 

Moon. Robinson College, 

Auditorium. 9:30pm. £2. 

• St John’s Films: Before Night Falls 



MISC 

• CU Ballet Club: ‘Beginners’ Ballet 

Class. Queens’ College, Fitzpatrick 

Hall. 7pm. £1.50. 

• CU Ballet Club: Beginners Classes. 

(both at the same level). Classes last 

one hour. Queens’ College, Bowett 

Room. 6pm. £1.50. 

• CU Jewish Society: ‘Lunch and 

Learn’ – free bagel lunch and great 

discussion. King’s College, Chetwynd 

Room. More info: jmr53. 1pm. 

• CU Judo Club: Beginners session. 

First session free. Please wear strong 

long-sleeved top. Fenner’s Gym. 

8pm. 


Yvonne. Trinity Burrell’s field, Butler 

House Party Room. 6pm. £3.50, or 

termcard (4 sessions) 

for £10. 

• Greek Dance Classes: Come have 

fun by learning to Greek dance! 

Darwin College, Common Room. 

5pm. £15/term or £2/class. 

MUSIC 

• Kettle’s Yard Music: Subscription 

Concert: chamber music in the 

beautiful setting of Kettle’s Yard 

House. Kettle’s Yard. 8pm. £8.50 per 

term, £20 per year. 

TALK 

• Culture Shock: Seminars in 

Contemporary Culture: Drew Milne 

& John Tranter, poets: “Information, 

Technology and the future of Poetry”. 

Trinity Hall, The Master’s Lodge. 

5:30pm. 

• Kettle’s Yard: Lunchtime talk about 

the current exhibition or a work of 

art in the house. Kettle’s Yard. 

1:10pm. 

THEATRE 





7:30pm. From £4.50 to £6.50. 



7:15pm. £5/£4. 

FRIDAY 

16 

MISC 

• Baha’i Society: Prayers for world 

peace and unity. Friends Meeting 



CLASSIFIED 

• Play Guitar – Play 

Saxophone! 

FREE consultation 

Call 365276 or e-mail: 

jazzambi@aol.com 

Need Jazzy ambience or Jazz 

moods for dancing? 

www.jazzam.fsnet.co.uk 

Parkers Piece 

01223 367480 

15% NUS 

discount 

CHECKING 

THURSDAY 15 House, Jesus Lane. 7:30pm. 

• CU Jewish Society: ‘Friday Night 

Experience’ – meal + entertainment, 

followed by Culanu Oneg. The 

Student Centre, 3 Thompsons Lane. 

7:30pm. 

• Queens’ Ents: Es Paradis. Ibiza 

Anthems and Club Classics. Queens’ 

College, Fitzpatrick Hall. 9pm. £4. 

• Salsa Classes with Nelson Batista: 

Abs beg/imp: 6–7.30pm. Int/adv: 

7.30–9pm. St Columba’s Hall, 4 

Downing Place (opp Crowne Plaza). 

6pm. £5 (£4 <strong>students</strong>). 

MUSIC 




& Martyr. 7:30pm. £8, £5 restricted 

view; £5 student standby. 

• Cambridge University Symphony 

Orchestra: Programme: Beethoven’s 

Fidelio Overture, Brahms’ Haydn 

Variations and Symphony No.2. 

Trinity Chapel. 8pm. £7.50, (£4). 

• Kettle’s Yard Music: Lunchtime 

recital by <strong>students</strong>. Kettle’s Yard. 

1:10pm. 

• SJCMS Term Concert: Fauré 

Requiem, Poulenc Organ Concerto, 

Grieg Holberg Suite. St John’s 

College, Chapel. 8pm. £4/£2. 

• 70s and 80s Disco 

extravaganza and karaoke bar. 

The Junction, 10–2. 10pm. £3.50 

b4 11. 

TALK 

• Teape Lectures: “Travelling through 

Britain: India’s road to post 

colonialism”. Divinity Faculty. 5pm. 

THEATRE 





7:30pm. From £4.50 to £6.50. 



7:15pm. £5/£4. 

• Shadwell: William Shakespeare’s 

‘The Tempest’ – magic, music, 

monsters, marvellousness and 

dancing girls. Caius College, 

Bateman Auditorium. 7:45pm. £4. 

• The Junction CDC: The People 

Show: Second. Unfeigned love, 

barbarism and marriage.Cambridge 

Drama Centre, Covent Garden Mill 

Road. 8pm. £5.50 disc. 

www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk/<strong>students</strong> LAST WEEK’S 

KETTLE'S YARD 

GALLERY & HOUSE 

Contemporary art exhibitions, 

talks, music, 20th century art 

and objects. 

Come up for air, headspace 

and daylight. www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk/<strong>students</strong> 

DOJOS 

COMPETITION 

IS NOW ON 

PAGE 11 

Hobbs Pavilion 

RESTAURANT 

An excellent Mediterranean menu 

freshly prepared every day, a 

special vegetarian and vegan menu 

available, a comprehensive wine list 

and attentive service all within its 

unique location in Cambridge. 

Private parties welcome 

What others say about us: 

“Excellent” – FHM 

“Quality food, the breadth of 

choice is tantalising” – The 

Guardian 

“A textbook display of fine 

cooking” – Varsity 

“Wonderful” – Customer’s letter 

LISTINGS? 

CHECK ONLINE 

www.varsity.cam.ac.uk

A 

varsityarts 

1993 1996 

1997 

1999 

1998 

High Art or Low Culture? 

? 2001 

The return of the 

Turner Prize

18 ARTSVISUAL 


www.varsity.cam.ac.uk A 

TURNER 

TANTRUMS 

2001 nominee, Isaac Julien and 

former friend and collaborator, 

Javier de Frutos, have fallen out 

over the copyright of a film that Julien 

is to include in his exhibition at Tate 

Britain. Although the row began long 

before the artist was nominated for 

the £20,000 art prize, it seems that de 

Frutos’ demand for formal recognition 

for his part in the cinematic 

piece, ‘The Long Road to Mazatlan’, 

reeks of a tradition of publicity-generating 

squabbles that centre around the 

Turner Prize. 

2000 Glenn Brown's The Loves of 

Shepherds was recognised as a near 

identical version of artist Anthony 

Brown's cover for an obscure 1974 

science fiction novel. 

1999 My Bed, Tracey Emin’s shrine 

to bad taste, complete with used 

sheets and condoms – was colonised 

by two Chinese artists who 

announced intentions of performing 

"critical sex" on the work. 

1998 Chris Ofili's award-winning 

work included dried, resin coated elephant 

dung. 

1997 Emin (again) and her memorable 

performance at the Channel 4 

post-prize discussion, ended with a 

stormy exit announcing she had to go 

and call her mother. 

1995 Animal rights enthusiasts 

protested over winner Hirst's Mother 

and Child Divided, 

1993 Rachel Whiteread's House 

declared greatest work of art of the 

year, also took the prize for worst 

work by K Foundation, presenting 

her with £40,000 anti-art prize. 

Blaming Thatcher again 

Hannah Barry exposes the darker forces at work behind the scenes at the Turner Prize 

Turner is the only prize in the art 

world that allows the Tate Gallery 

to act as a state funded advertising 

agency, complemented by a Channel 4 

publicity campaign, for rubbish collectors, 

embroiderers, plagiarizers and not 

least, god help the art critics at the 

Evening Standard. ‘No real art?’ demand 

the smug masses. Shocking. In fact, even 

more appallingly, this is the prize to 

promote British art, that in 2000 

dared to publish a shortlist of 4, of 

which three were non-British 

artists. No wonder the xenophobes 

of British art were out in force to 

protest at last year’s admirably cosmopolitan 

selection. 

The Turner Prize, given its notoriety 

is suprisingly only 17 years 

old. Founded in 1984, it was a 

response by the Tate to the rise of 

the Thatcherite government in 

1979 and consequent cuts in 

museum funding, (so screams the 

Stuckist anti-anti-art group’s manifesto). 

Galleries and museums were 

pushed to look privately for funding 

and thus reared the ugly head 

of publicity. The Turner Prize was 

formed specifically to encourage 

the promotion and collection of 

contemporary British art and for 

outstanding work in the previous twelve 

months. And so arrived the Young British 

Artist and all its controversial baggage. 

Even though Mr Saatchi may whine 

from the depths of his glorified power station 

on the banks of the Thames that last 

year’s shortlist engages with contemporary 

culture, or generates public discussion 

and interest in works of contempo- 

rary art, the truth is that the Turner Prize 

may be well known in Britain, but it fails 

to generate the type of debate Serota 

would like it to. Debate it we do, but not 

about the artworks, and their technique 

or even interpretation. With true British 

vagueness, discussion meanders around 

the ‘art or not’ debate which we all realize 

by now, will never come to any satisfacto- 

ry conclusion. There will always be someone 

doing a variation on the soiled Emin 

bed, casting dung onto a canvas or even 

having a Damien-esque moment, let 

loose with some animals and a vat of 

formaldehyde to start the chatter once 

again. And if not, well there’s always a 

photographer lurking about the place that 

can provoke disapproving mumblings 

about the worrying boundaries between 

commercial photography and so called 

‘real’ art. 

It is true that the Turner has been 

awarded to some of the most acclaimed 

contemporary British artists, for example 

Rachel Whiteread, Anish Kapoor, 

Anthony Gormley, Gillian Wearing and 

not least the well-known Mr Hirst, but it 

is not the Turner Prize alone that has been 

behind such artists. It is here that we realize 

that the major forces behind contemporary 

art in Britain and indeed contemporary 

art at an international level, are 

establishment dealers such as Mr Saatchi 

and the more recent star Jay Jopling, the 

driving force behind the White Cube 

Gallery. Let us take last year’s nominees 

for example. Is it not interesting that two 

of Saatchi’s Neurotic Realists from his 

show in 1999, Tomoko Takahashi and 

Michael Raedecker, found their way onto 

the Turner shortlist? Indeed, even Glenn 

Brown was shown as part of Sensation 

(Young British Artists from the Saatchi 

Collection). And as for Jopling, well his 

success stories jam the shortlists, from 

Gilbert and George to Emin, Hirst, 

and 2000’s Wolfgang Tillmans. 

The problem with the Turner is 

that despite its having been for 

most of its short career an appalling 

circus, its reputation still prevents it 

from being taken seriously, not 

only as a competition but also as an 

exhibition. Those who want to see 

the latest success stories in British 

art look not to the Tate and Turner, 

but to establishments such as the 

Lisson, the Saatchi Gallery and the 

ubiquitous White Cube. Last year 

the tabloids were at a loss with two 

highly accomplished artists in 

Tillmans and Raedecker and 

dammit, someone actually using 

paint. Not one video. And this year 

the nominees are again surprisingly 

good, Richard Billingham being a 

long overdue name on the shortlist. 

The Young British Artists are now 

verging upon thirty and the Prize has 

taken that necessary sedative. Sssh, dare I 

say it, perhaps the Turner Prize may just 

be showing an inkling of improvement. 

Twenty years on, Thatcher may yet give 

me something to smile about. 

And the nominations are… 

May Calil, Lucy Moore, Rachel Page and Vanessa Hodgkinson look into this year’s pick of British art 

Richard Billingham Martin Creed 

Mike Nelson 

This Birmingham photographer first 

exhibited in 1995 at Antony Reynolds 

Gallery, London. He then went on to 

participate in the seminal Sensation 

exhibition at the RA in 1997 and won 

the Citibank Private Photography Prize 

in the same year. Billingham is most 

well known for the internationally 

acclaimed series of photographs of his 

family, taken over a six year period, initially 

intended as the source material for 

paintings. These photographs went on 

to form the book and exhibition “Ray’s a 

Laugh”, which documents the lives of 

his parents in their council flat. The 

photographs, intimately depicting Ray’s 

alcoholism, his mothers’ obesity, and 

their completely dysfunctional relationship, 

naturally provoked criticism and 

questions about class voyeurism concerning 

condescension, contempt and 

exploitation over the powerless subjects. 

Billingham is nominated for his contributions 

to The Sleep of Reason at the 

Norwich Gallery, Body Beautiful at the 

Galerie Jennifer Flay in Nice, and his 

solo exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in 

June 2000. Billingham is a controversial 

photographer who has received very 

mixed reviews, but whether a winner or 

not, he will certainly benefit from the 

phenomenal publicity generated around 

the award. 

Untitled, 1996, Richard Billigham 

Portrait, 1999, Isaac Julien 

Cartoon from Daily Express, 1976 

Creed once stated that his works are 

concerned with “nothing in particular” , 

an interesting and rather brave statement 

for any artist to make. Creed is an artist 

concerned with portraying frank 

and honest images of every day life. He 

does this by using objects such as 

doorstops, ceramic tiles and other 

objects that one encounters on an everyday 

basis. His installations made using 

balloons, Blu-tack and Sellotape have a 

pure and clean aesthetic bringing 

him much critical acclaim. His 

‘making do’ mentality, has resulted in the 

creation of some truly sublime works. 

Issac Julien 

Julien’s preoccupation is with the representation 

of race and masculinity in film. 

While his work is certainly considered 

avant garde, the artist uses film to 

explore and subvert stereotypical portrayals 

of gay and black subjects. The 

Long Road to Mazatlan is a triptych of 

lush colour and layered imagery combining 

cinematic references to Warhol’s 

Lonesome Cowboys, Hockney’s Swimmers 

and Pools and De Niro’s performance as 

Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. From the 

close-ups to the overlay of imagery, 

Julien makes the camera “not a witness 

but an accomplice.” 

Half the Air in a Given Space, 1998, 

Martin Creed 

The Coral Reef, 2000, Mike Nelson 

w 

web 

w www.tate.org.uk 

In the narrative written to accompany a 

previous exhibition by Mike Nelson, 

Jaki Irvine begins with ‘a man wakes up 

sweating in an uneasy hybrid fiction’. 

The story begins in a changing room, in 

which boxing gloves hang on racks and 

an uncanny cartoon mask rests on the 

floor. The space seems to have paused 

between two action scenes. Any 

moment a mad boxer might burst in 

shouting. There is a strong theatrical 

quality to Nelson’s work. As the viewer 

passes from a corridor stacked with old 

video arcade games that take coins of an 

unknown currency, into a room where 

an American prom seems to have just 

burst into, and out of existence, he feels 

disconcerted and confused as the distortion 

of reality makes him uneasy. Nelson 

suggests that though we strive to find a 

firm base to our existence and cling to 

familiarity, in fact the true nature of life 

is one of constant change. At the end of 

the exhibition, in the last room, travel 

books and art catalogues are arranged on 

shelves next to the desk. It would have 

been apt if one of those books had been 

Alice in Wonderland for her experience of 

magic elixirs, mad hatters and illogical 

happenings is paralleled with the viewer’s 

experience of Nelson’s work. What 

he will inflict upon us at the Tate is anyone’s 

guess.


A ARTSLITERATURE 


Writing a review of The Bible is 

somewhat of a minefield; likewise, 

reading The Bible is 

somewhat of a minefield. Not only is it a 

very long book (364 pages in a standard 

Hebrew version, excluding the sequel, 

not reviewed here), it is also confusing 

and repetitive. Maybe the best reason for 

not reading it is because some parts will 

bore anyone who is not a lawyer or a 

high priest. There are many other good 

reasons why one should never glance in 

the general direction of this book; an 

important one to some is that it can be 

viewed as being deeply ‘uncool’. Still, I 

think it is a fine work, and one shouldn’t 

surrender completely to fashion. 

The Bible was probably written over a 

period of a few thousand years, in different 

places by different writers. It goes 

without saying that each of these writers 

had a very specific agenda to stress and 

various points to make. This is probably 

the reason that the book is so confusing. 

The canonised version of the book (done 

in the early Middle Ages) gives a fairly 

continuous plot, but leaves a lot to be 

interpreted in different ways. Think, for 

example, of the 

character of King 

David, who is 

always oscillating 

between approval 

and ridicule from 

various writers; or 

Samson, who is 

clearly liked very 

much by the writers, 

but sometimes 

gives the impression 

of being a 

fool. It is these 

inner conflicts and 

paradoxes that 

make reading The 

Bible interesting. 

The reader is made 

aware of the writers’ 

intentions 

through their 

changing attitudes and continuing 

debates. It is not a matter of simple char- 

Boring people 

Not (a) novel? 

Tim Stanley suspects it’s autobiography.... Richard Pearce de-hypes Travel Arrangements 

When I settled down to read 

No Bones I was looking forward 

to reading a book that 

wasn’t about a Catholic child growing 

up in the troubles in Northern Ireland. 

Sadly, that’s exactly what Anna Burns 

wants to tell us about. Ever since 

Truman Capote produced the first piece 

of journalistic fiction no one writes novels 

anymore; and Burns clearly has no 

intention of doing so either. What follows 

is a vivid, minimalist and totally 

convincing reportage of the violent 

world of the 70s and 80s in the troubled 

province. Burns describes working class 

violence with a cheerfulness that borders 

on the unnerving, but it is not 

exactly uncharted territory. Youth wanders 

around Ulster disenchanted and on 

the dole, looking for kicks. When they 

see Deerhunter, Russian Roulette comes 

into vogue. At moments like these, 

Burns demonstrates a certain skill in 

putting across the happy senselessness 

of their lives – “On hearing Rab 

McCormick had shot himself, and in a 

game – of all things – of Russian 

Roulette, the vigilantes were first of all 

peeved and a bit sulky as to why no one 

had thought to invite them.” 

But Burns has the immaturity of a 

first writer, especially one trying to capture 

an era without a story to communicate 

it through. The prose is sometimes 

clumsy. Figures of authority are 

lampooned in a heavy-handed way: the 

high school teacher Miss Hanratty is 

overblown and ridiculously violent, “the 

form-teacher sat down and took snorty 

breaths and huffed and puffed and 

scratched herself.” Girls wheel round 

dead bodies in prams; British soldiers 

jeer and fondle the locals and the IRA 

dispense a gruesome justice for the pettiest 

of crimes. It’s heartless, callous 

stuff. Accurate for a heartless time perhaps, 

but Burns forgets that even in the 

midst of death a half-decent writer can 

find life. 

The central character, Amelia, is distant 

and two-dimensional. As we follow 

her around Ulster we occasionally trip 

over amusingly perverse anecdotes, such 

as her bribing her way in to a Marks and 

Spencer, but we never come close to 

understanding her and what she feels. 

Arguably, like Isherwood, writing in an 

equally violent time and place, she is a 

camera. If the metaphor is what Burns 

intended then she only takes black and 

white pictures. The girl matures and 

goes to live in London. Reading the 

author’s biographical blurb, the thought 

dawns that this is autobiography – the 

lowest and most unbelievable form of 

fiction. At the end the cast are reunited 

on a small island and sail off to an 

uncertain future. But by then the reader 

would care little if the boat sank and 

we never heard from any of them again. 

British writers have brought us the 

most horrific and chilling reports of 

some of the poorest and most desperate 

areas of our isle. But this is not novelism. 

There is no depth, no heart, no 

passion. Worse still, no subtlety. This is 

described as a “punch in the stomach” 

by the blurb. And yet there are many 

other, infinitely more enjoyable ways, to 

destroy one’s liver than reading this 

book. 

The superlatives that surround M. 

John Harrison in both the press 

release and inside jacket of Travel 

Arrangements give the impression that this 

will be the read of my life. For example: 

“Grittier than Carey and wittier than 

McEwan” (Times Literary Supplement). 

Impressive stuff, though it doesn’t tell you 

very much about the book. If I were to 

pitch it, I would steer away from such 

dizzy heights, if only for fear of falling. 

Travel Arrangements is clever and, while 

the weirdness of an almost-cyber world 

has been done elsewhere (and I think better) 

by writers like William Gibson, some 

of what faces you in this book is both original 

and worthy. The bizarre “self-axing” of 

a Soho couple (as a symbol of their love) is 

juxtaposed with Harrison’s smart characterisation, 

showing that what must be the 

most extreme form of self-piercing cannot 

save a relationship from its inherent dullness. 

And I would be doing Harrison a 

disservice if I did not mention the excellent 

‘The Horse of Iron and How We Can 

Know It’, a paranoid yet understated story 

chronicling the protagonist’s attempt to 

journey through life and its meanings via a 

tarot-guided voyage of Britain’s railways. 

But understanding how Harrison gets it 

right in this story is in fact a way of understanding 

why, overall, this book isn’t all it’s 

cracked up to be. 

acters following a straightforward plot; 

but complex characters used by the nar- 

rators to make various points and criticisms. 

My problem is that Harrison seems to 

make the same point over and over. The 

characters are naff, and not all that bright, 

though quirky enough to make them 

interesting to write about. This formula is 

played out oh-so ironically in ‘Old 

Women’, the first (and worst) story in the 

book. It’s about a writer who meets up 

with a more successful peer, who in turn is 

listening to a yuppie couple make conversation 

about The Times crossword and 

planning to use it as material for his writing. 

Yet the sad fact is that this observer, 

whom Harrison points out as missing the 

truly unusual in everyday life, is trying to 

use the same kind of material written 

about in these short stories. It’s true, a discussion 

of The Times crossword does not 

expose the interesting parts of life’s minutiae 

for us, but neither do most of the 

events which Harrison himself uses. As I 

said before, he gets it right a few times, but 

more often than not I felt he was trying to 

force eccentricity and interest into things 

that have none. Sometimes, people are just 

boring. Since everyone else has been 

name-dropping about Harrison, I would 

point to Irvine Welsh as the man who 

writes better about the genuine dullness 

that can permeate life, and keeps his prose 

interesting while doing it. When Harrison 

got it right, it was a gem of a story, but this 

only really happened once. 

For those who are ignorant (well, those 

who aren’t fluent in ancient Hebrew), 

the importance of a 

good translation cannot 

be understated. 

Also, try to get your 

hands on a good 

Bible companion, 

one that explains the 

subtleties of every 

word, punctuation 

and misspelling. After 

all, every single 

comma of this book 

has been discussed for 

a good few centuries; 

a sound model for 

those of us with high 

inspirations and bad 

spelling. If you are 

looking for such a 

guide, make sure it 

gives background for 

the relevant period 

and a lot of context from other mythologies. 

Such background will not only 

LIT SHORTS 

Waterstone’s 

19 

Norman Ross, author of Managing the 

Planet – The Politics of the New 

Millenium, tells us how governments 

first came to agreements about international 

environmental laws, and how 

these laws affect our everyday lives. 

Wednesday 14th November. 6.30-8pm. 

£1 Ticket, redeemable against a copy of 

Ross’ book on the night. 

Interested in serial killers or Johnny 

Depp? Join Stewart P Evans and Keith 

Skinner, who will be talking about their 

book Jack the Ripper – Letters from Hell, 

a collection of, yes, Jack the Ripper’s letters, 

and their work on the forthcoming 

film on Jack, staring Depp, called From 

Hell. Thursday 15th November. 6.30- 

8pm. £1 Ticket, redeemable against a 

copy of the book on the night. 

Borders 

Creative Writing Group. Monday 12th 

November. 7pm. Free. 

Open-Mic Poetry Night. Thursday 

15th November. 8pm. Free. 

Heffers 

Brian Ryder, author of Beyond Realism, 

will be at Heffers Art Shop speaking 

about this new book, and giving 

demonstrations. Saturday 10th 

November. 10.30-4pm. No ticket needed. 

Free. 

Cherry: The Life of Apsley Cherry- 

Garrard, written by Sara Wheeler, is a 

new book about one of the youngest 

members of Scott’s last expedition. 

Wheeler will be discussing the book and 

giving a slide-show presentation. 

Monday 12th November. 6-7.30pm. 

Ticket required. Free. 

Cambridge Union 

The big one...Heffers and the Union 

present a debate with novelist and journalist 

Will Self. Tuesday 13th 

November. £5 Tickets through the 

Union (01223-566-421). 

Well Thumbed: The Good Book? 

Imri Schattner-Ornan gives us a literary analysis of The Bible, and confirms that it’s definitely worth reading 

Photo: James Southgate 

The Bible in Hebrew: but don’t worry, it’s also available in English 

make reading it more fun; it will also 

make it much easier. 

Please don’t read it because it is ‘often 

quoted from’; you can only do that if 

you are a sad English student. Do read 

it because it has great stories, good 

characters, lots of sex, incest, and gore, 

irony and wit, political critique and 

fantasy. Most of all read it because it is 

fun.

20 ARTSCLASSICAL 



Poignancy and Peace Lunchtime 

David Warren sees a rare production of Prokofiev’s epic opera at the ENO 

Prokofiev, composing in Stalinist 

Russia, had to submit his score of 

War and Peace for vetting by The 

Artistic Committee before it could be performed. 

Changes had to be made and the 

piece soon became prime Stalinist propaganda. 

Prokofiev added an epigraph, 

exalting the resilience of Russia and 

Russians, sharpened the musical portrayal 

of Kutuzov, the commander of the 

Russian army, and most importantly he 

monumentalised the opera by changing 

its emphasis towards the patriotic and 

heroic, and away from the personal and 

intimate. 

The director, Tim Alberey, immediately 

makes obvious the larger purpose 

imposed on the composition by setting 

the epigraph in the machined degradation 

� 

of Stalinist Russia. Faced with a mob defiant 

in the face of “two and ten European 

nations” the audience are presented with a 

picture of the hallucinogenic compulsion 

of nationalism at its confrontational ugliest: 

a rabble constrained by dreadful constructivist 

shapes, yet terrifyingly potent 

as they, perhaps uncontrollably, boom out 

recounts of past national glories. What is 

more, by moving the epigraph from its 

usual place – signifying the end of “peace” 

when Anatoly is forced to leave Moscow, 

to the very start of the opera. Alberey creates 

the impression that the remaining 

thirteen scenes of narrative, set in Russia’s 

titanic struggle with the Napoleonic 

armies, will be exalted, and indeed corrupted 

by this nationalist hunger for a 

valiant and great History. 

Moreover, the frenzied potency of the 

opening scene surely exposes the dangers 

and fundamental falseness of this 

blinkered patriotism. A comparison of 

this scene with the production’s later 

glowing treatment of the conduct of the 

Russian army in 1812 and the response 

of the ordinary countrymen to the 

burning of Moscow makes it explicit 

that Prokofiev wasn’t concerned with 

the kind of forced patriotism in the epigraph. 

Rather he was trying to demonstrate 

something deeper and yet more 

spontaneous: the sort of heartfelt sentiment 

that enabled two aristocrats, 

Pierre and Andrei, by enlisting in the 

ranks, to be prepared to sacrifice their 

lives for their country. 

Furthermore, thanks to the poignant 

depiction of Moscow ablaze – enhanced 

by flames engulfing obscure figures on a 

video screen, our sympathy is entirely 

with the Russian people. Consequently, 

the escaped prisoners bravely ambushing 

the retreating French column seem 

all the more heroic and Pierre’s mourning 

of his friend Karatayev’s death 

appears all the more moving. 

Of course, thanks to the Artistic 

Committee’s censorship the veneration 

of the role of the People runs parallel to 

an exposition of a foppish and inert 

aristocracy. Here though, the director’s 

attitude towards Andrei and his contemporaries 

seems to have been more 

complicated than a simple dismissal. 

Certainly, to begin with they are a two 

dimensional and debased bunch: 

Natasha with her frivolous soprano, 

Andrei the stale gentlemanly suitor, his 

father, sclerotic and snobbish, and the 

dissolute Anatoly appearing to enjoy an 

incestuous relationship with his sister 

rather more than his seduction of 

Natasha. 

The decadent upper classes are not 

entirely written off though. Andrei’s – 

Simon Keenlyside’s, transformation 

into a worthy and genuinely emotional 

being is particularly noticeable as his 

initially rigid and unimaginative baritone 

developed a touching and lyrical 

quality. Similarly, John Daszak – Pierre, 

moved seamlessly into his ultimately 

heroic role as his bass became increasingly 

resolute and decisive. So while the 

elites weren’t totally unworthy the point 

was clear: both Pierre and Andrei could 

only escape their inane aristocratic personas 

when they joined the plebeians in 

Russia’s mighty struggle. 

The director then, managed to mock 

the Artistic Committee’s original intention, 

while managing to remain faithful 

to the patriotic heroism of Prokofiev’s 

final libretto. For this he deserves full 

marks. And thanks to its skilful direction 

this production is thoroughly first 

rate. A must see for all music lovers, 

although latter day Stalinists might be 

advised to stay away. 

There are further productions on the 

9,15,17,22,24 and 28 November at the 

ENO 

ARTSMUSIC A 

Musical Necrophilia 

Alex Marshall dons a dapper white suit and rediscovers the art of crooning 

Robbie! Christmas! Name two 

other words that make 7-year 

old girls and checkout assistants 

called Sandra happier? Necrophilia! 

Indolence! Nice try, but no, although 

they do describe Robbie’s current musical 

output quite well. See, still haunted 

by the Take That ghosts of 

Christmas Past, Robbie’s now so desperate 

to be recognised as a serious 

white musician and an international 

übermensch that he’s taken to raping 

the decaying back-catalogues of the Rat 

Pack for inspiration. It’s easy to see 

why he chose to re-record their standards 

for his new Christmas (well it is 

November) LP, Swing When Your 

Winning. In the 50s the likes of 

Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr and Tony 

Bennett ruled the World with their 

crooning voices, up-tempo swing and 

Mafioso connections. They had it all; 

hedonism that all men envied (popping 

open the champagne over some bikiniclad 

girls while on a yacht being a particularly 

resonant image); a suave, tailored 

look women swooned over; and 

an enigmatic big-band sound which 

the critics lauded. Robbie’s idea then is 

if he does what they did he’ll get similar 

results – although hanging out with 

Sinatra’s original but now 82 year-old 

session musicians must be impinging 

on the overall feel. One thing, however, 

stands in Robbie’s way from 

Xeroxing his new-found ‘idols’ – he’s 

English. No matter, he’ll just fake an 

Italian-American accent (‘Well Did 

You Evah?’), or maybe do a Louis 

Armstrong impression (‘Mr 

Bojangles’), and no one will notice. 

This either represents new levels of 

laziness, racism, or a real-lack of selfconfidence. 

Musical necrophilia, in my 

opinion is a crime, but given the state 

doesn’t agree with me, I’ll just have to 

“raping the decaying 

back-catalogues 

of the Rat Pack” 

hope Ol’ Blue Eyes resurrects himself 

to ‘cap’ Robbie for denigrating his 

image. 

But then Robbie’s merely indicative 

of a general renaissance in crooning in 

Europe. Coming out strongest, however, 

is a 57-year-old Viennese gentleman, 

Louis Austen. Probably a veteran 

of ‘Eurotrash,’ definitely a veteran of 

Las Vegas-style Butlins (where he sang 

alongside the likes of Al Green); Louis 

is the type of man who likes to dine his 

wife in style, before putting on a white- 

i 

suit and going out to commit adultery. 

You merely have to look at his stately 

appearance to be filled with a perverse 

reverence, a feeling reinforced as soon 

as he opens his mouth it being as if the 

entire Moulin Rouge has danced out of 

it. With the cream of Discofied House, 

Patrick Pulsinger and Mario 

Neugebauer producing him, his new 

LP ‘Only Tonight’ conjures up those 

times when “you pass the daytime in 

the evening” and party in cosmopolitan 

four-to-the-floor luxuriance. His voice 

allows him to slip from the Barry 

White-esque ‘Hoping’ (growling spoken 

word intro, glissando strings, the 

melody off ‘Saturday’) to the fetishclub 

sleaze and shock wave bass of 

‘Grab My Shaft’ (refrain; ‘Grab My 

Shaft / Blow My Horn / When its Hard 

/ In the Early Morn’). If Robbie tried 

such material he’d only make it sound 

camp. Monsieur Austen through his 

soaring dulcet cries gives it an air of 

serious exuberance. He puts the charisma 

back into club culture, while the 

music will get you “taking it off, getting 

close” as he wants. Buy his LP, mix 

yourself a Manhattan, lie back and 

dream of ‘the Life.’ If only Robbie had 

just done that. 

Only Tonight (Kitty Yo!) is out now. Swing When you’re 

Winning (Chrysalis) is out on the 19th, if you must. 

w 

web 

w www.eno.org 

PREVIEWS 

Friday 9 November 

Concert, Kettle’s Yard 

1.10pm, free. 

Saturday 10 November 

Fitzwilliam Museum Promenade 

Concerts 2.30pm, free – Max de Vries 

playing Marimba. 

Organ Recital, King’s College 

6.30pm, free – Daniel Hyde plays 

Mozart, Bach and Dupré. 

Bach B Minor Mass, Trinity 

Chapel 7.30pm, £8/6 – Ben 

Woodward conducts in this performance 

on modern instruments of 

Bach’s masterpiece. Featuring 

soloists Elizabeth Weisberg, Helen 

Deeming, Iestyn Davies, Andrew 

Tortise and Ronan Collett. The 

orchestra is led by Owen Cox and 

features a brass section from the 

Royal Academy of Music. Tickets 

are available from Trinity P’lodge. 

Britten@25 

New Cambridge Opera Group 

begins the Britten@25 Festival with 

an opera double-bill. The Turn of 

the Screw by Benjamin Britten and 

a new work by Cheryl Frances- 

Hoad, conducted by Matilda 

Hoffman. Performances take place 

at St. Edward’s Church, Peas Hill, 

7.30pm – tickets £5 (Student 

Standby) up to £12 available from 

the Corn Exchange. 

BW 

PREVIEWS 

The more you think about it, 

the more you realise that 

Cambridge is all about contradictions: 

we preach about Access 

for all, while the University represents 

centuries of unbridled elitism; 

we ponce along to formal hall in 

suits and gowns and then talk about 

how glad we are that we didn’t apply 

to Magdalene. Much of Cambridge 

simply must be seen at all of the right 

places, suppressing their natural 

desire to give money to middle-aged 

musicians and tragic reminders of 

‘80s pop ideals at their worst. Yes, I 

saw you all dancing to Chesney 

Hawkes at the fireworks – I have 

seen through your shallow lies. 

Anyway… 

The cool: LTJ Bukem does his 

d’n’b stuff at the Junction on 

Thursday, 10pm-2am, £6 in 

advance, £8 on the door. 

The young: The Electric Soft 

Parade play the Boatrace on 

Tuesday, £6 on the door. 

The ‘80s revivalists: Ominously 

billed as “Mike Scott and several of 

the original members of the band”, 

The Waterboys are coming to a 

Corn Exchange near you on 

Monday. 

The middle-aged: Everybody’s 

favourite mildy funky uncle, Jools 

Holland, shakes his boogie-woogie 

thing at the Corn Exchange on 

Sunday. Tickets are £19.50. 

Viscount Catchesides of Suffolk


A ARTSMUSIC 


DERANGED DISHEVELLED AND DESPERATE 

Andrew WK is clearly an ambitious 

young fellow, aided only by a vast production 

budget and the papal [??] blessing 

of the NME, he is single headedly 

trying to resurrect the worst music 

genre of all time: LA Poodle Rock. 

All WK’s songs are essentially the 

same, irony free rehashes of Kiss, Van 

Halen and Motley Crue, imploring us 

to ‘Party until we puke.’ On the rare 

occasions he strays from his hedonistic 

manifesto it is to offer up a side order 

of misogyny “You’ve gotta show her 

who’s the man.” 

I Get Wet is undoubtedly one of the 

most the most unimaginative sterile 

and witless albums of this year; seemingly 

cynically cobbled together by a 

multinational record company to 

appeal to the deluded fantasies of hormonal 

14 year old boys. To anyone 

outside this age group I Get Wet possesses 

all the subtly and appeal of being 

repeatedly hit in the face with a lump 

hammer. 

Andrew WK 

I Get Wet (Mercury) 

Out Now 

JIM HINKS 

David Nowell Smith: Six By Seven at the Boatrace 

Rock and Roll can be a cruel business. 

Take Six By Seven, for example, 

who, with two glorious albums 

and a live sound that kicks shit out of just 

about anyone else, are still yet to get commercial 

recognition, and the status their 

broody, minimal sound demands. James 

(Keyboards): “Basically, we want to get our 

music through to as many people as possible, 

but we can’t get onto any sort of 

playlist, because our music’s deemed too 

subversive, or something. But then again, 

they’ll play all types of nu-metal, which is 

equally abrasive, and it’s difficult to know 

what’s going on.” The frustration that they 

aren’t being allowed to speak to an audience 

is what makes the music so vital. 

“The Closer You Get [their second 

album] is an angry album. It’s a bleak 

album… and I think the general tone of 

the record was a sort of frustration and 

anger at the position we’re in. This new 

(third) album’s taken on a more commercial 

edge”, he says, stressing their desire to 

be heard, “but at the same time it’s a very 

rocking album, a very intense album – 

we’ve found a focus, come out with some 

great music together, more concise and 

full-on.” 

With all this frustration with the music 

industry, do they see themselves as political? 

“Well, politically we’re on the outside. 

And musically. When Radiohead, or 

Primal Scream, make all kind of anti-this 

or that statements, they have reached a 

commercial level so people will listen.” 

They associate themselves with other 

bands through attitude rather than musi- 

Last week my parents were at a wedding. 

Oddly enough, it was a relation 

of Jamiroquai’s bassist that was tying 

the knot, so the whole band were 

milling around at the reception after 

the service, chatting to the guests and 

necking the champers. And after perhaps 

a few (twelve) glasses too many, 

JK thought it would be a good idea to 

hand out free CDs (strictly for promotional 

use of course) of the new single 

and album, as well as dishing out tickets 

for their upcoming European tour. 

Anyhow, my parents were happily 

telling me about their brush with 

fame,when the obvious question came 

up: “So what did you bring back 

then?” to which the reply came “Oh 

nothing darling, we didn’t think you 

liked that sort of thing.” 

Anyway, as you can imagine, once I’d 

dried my eyes, I informed the ’rents 

that the parental divorce papers were 

in the post. 

Jamiroquai 

You Give Me Something (Sony) 

Out 12 November 

CHRIS MORTON 

cal influence: Spiritualized, Mercury Rev 

and Aphex Twin: “we wanna do what he’s 

done: bring the understanding to the people”. 

And live they are awesome. In the van, 

James was quiet, a bit too nice for the 

anger of the music, but onstage he and his 

colleagues are something quite different. 

The Jeckyl and Hyde split, however, is no 

stage persona. This passion is throbbing in 

every note they play. Singer Chris Olley 

mutters incoherent profanities, tears into 

some audience-baiting (“we’ll make your 

fucking ears fall off”), and in the surge of 

noise that follows this threat, they endeavour 

to make good this promise. Brutal, 

jagged, at times quite terrifying, they make 

“we’ll make your fucking ears fall off” 

music quite unlike anyone else right now, 

propelled by tripped out drumbeats and a 

pulsating bass section, with a sweat-ridden 

rock and roll monolith frontman flaying 

his guitar round, screaming into the 

microphone, dishevelled and deranged, 

desperate to be heard. When you hear Six 

By Seven on record, they sound constrained 

by the studio, that they cannot get 

any louder, as their music craves. Here 

there is no such problem. Confrontational 

and as loud as you like, they hit with barrage 

upon barrage of glorious noise. Now 

lacking guitarist Sam Hempton’s effects 

pedal (they’ve recently become a fourpiece) 

their renditions of earlier songs are 

more heavy, reaching at a different stratosphere 

from before. They leave the stage to 

general astonishment and exhaustion. 

This is what music should be about. One 

day, they know, people will listen. 

I AM A 

DARKNESS 

...Bonnie Prince Billy at Shepherds Bush Empire reviewed by Louisa Thomson 

Love. At its best, it can uplift you, 

transform you, make everything in 

the world fall into place, whilst you 

dreamily float in the clouds above, secure 

about the most powerful of emotions that 

underlies and defines everything you do. 

At its worst, it can leave you feeling lonelier 

than you’ve ever felt before, empty, 

exhausted, bitter and revengeful. Love 

always has a soundtrack - Bonnie Prince 

Billy may not be an obvious choice for 

this, but to me, this music articulates too 

much. Careless love, not being able to 

love, loving the wrong people, the bleakness 

that engulfs you when it fades, when 

it is suddenly all over. 

I wouldn’t trust this man with my heart. 

An awkward character on stage and 

undoubtedly in person. He looks like a 

skinny garden gnome, the end of the 

batch that got distorted in the production 

line. His face is hidden behind an alarming 

orange moustache and beard, and 

when he sings, his mouth contorts into a 

beak, teeth protruding, ready to attack or 

pounce on his prey. He hovers on a fine 

line between unorthodoxy and indecency 

– at times you feel as though it would be 

better not to see the person behind the 

sound. Appearances can spoil the illusion. 

You can’t imagine this man in bed with 

the women in his songs. The beady eyes 

are too penetrating, too frightening, making 

it too hard to believe he cares. 

If I had a glass of whiskey and a roll up 

in my hands, I might feel more suited to 

his universe. After all, hailing from 

Louisville, Kentucky, the country music 

“he looks like a skinny garden gnome” 

tag is worn proudly, but with a totally different 

focus. I can ignore the shabby 

sound, the unrehearsed backing band, 

the songs that warble off key, because 

each word hits me like a dead weight, 

knocking me sideways, winding me, so I 

can barely breathe in the smoky atmosphere 

around the stage. I don’t want this 

odd looking man to tell me how I feel. 

I’ve listened to his albums at high points, 

low points, and they never give me hope. 

‘Do you know how much I love you, in 

the hope that somehow you can save me 

from this darkness’. Tears well up in my 

eyes and I have to leave, too poignant 

tonight, too painful. 

21 

Photos: Tom Catchesides

22 ARTSTHEATRE 



There’s pleasure in the pain 

Felicity Poulter gets in touch with her sadistic side and comes out loving what the Marquis de Sade has done to Marat 

Any play entitled The Persecution 

and Assassination of Marat as performed 

by the Inmates of the 

Asylum of Charenton under the direction 

of the Marquis de Sade is bound to be a 

little unusual, and from the moment I 

entered The Octagon I knew I was in 

for an entirely new experience. The 

signs reminding patrons to “turn off 

mobile phones” were written on behalf 

of the “clinic”, the ushers donned plas- 

RENT RISES 

Sarah Brealey is turned on by Adam Rickett 

H ave 

you been on one of those 

Alpha courses that are springing 

up like toadstools, offering 

faith and salvation, even to the 

religiously reluctant? If not, never 

fear, for Rent offers much the same 

thing, only with better clothes. 

Its ultimate vision is that salvation 

will come through group hugs, and 

that everyone should be nice to one 

another. It’s rather like that bit in 

Anglican church services when you 

have to shake everyone else’s hand to 

show that peace is among you. A nice 

idea, but really doesn’t mean very 

much. 

Even if you are determined not to be 

converted, Rent will overwhelm you – 

if only by the decibel levels. At first it 

seems baffling, but suddenly you find 

yourself smiling in spite of yourself 

and tapping your feet along to the 

music. It even offers miracles to convert 

the unbelieving. For example, 

Mimi (Jane York) could still sing perfectly 

despite being supposedly half 

frozen and too ill to even sit up. The 

grand finale is, naturally, 

Resurrection, when the dead Angel 

runs on stage during the penultimate 

song, to rapturous applause. 

Unlike Christianity, however, there 

is a curious absence of a plot. But 

what it lacked in structure it more 

than made up for in clichéd sentimentality. 

At least Christianity offers 

i 

tic aprons, and “nurses” in modern uniform 

ushered me and the other 

bemused spectators down to the 

“inmate”’ so that we could get used to 

each other before the performance. This 

was just the beginning of a theatrical 

spectacle that is exactly what director 

Alex Clay terms it: “Theatre of the 

Senses”. 

Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade portrays the 

inmates of the Charenton asylum pre- 

a hell: here, there was only relentless 

saccharine. There’s even fake snow, 

just in case you felt there was a cliché 

missing. Yes, someone does die of 

AIDS, but this is relegated to the 

background while couples sing love 

songs to each other. As I mentioned, 

he comes back to life anyway. 

There is, fortunately, a great deal of 

leather, latex and Lycra to compensate. 

Mimi went down particularly 

well with the audience, a fact not 

unconnected to the tightness of her 

trousers, which she had apparently 

been sewn into. She could also sing 

extremely well, which cannot be said 

for all the cast, who generally made 

up for it by sheer volume. I felt disconcertingly 

like someone’s gran, 

longing to yell, “Turn it down!” Rent 

is loosely based on La Bohème and 

aspires towards the condition of 

opera, with the result that it is less a 

musical than a pop concert. There is 

little real dialogue, just one song after 

another against a background of some 

spectacular visual effects. 

In most cases, Rent was clearly 

preaching to the converted – teenage 

girls and 50-somethings – who gossiped 

about Adam Rickett and all but 

threw their knickers on stage. Even I 

thought Rent was slick, professional 

and fun. But if I do decide I want to 

find the meaning of life, I think I’ll go 

to church instead. 

Rent is on at the Corn Exchange 

until Saturday 10th November at 7.30pm 

senting some episodes (written by Sade) 

from the life and finally the murder of 

Jean-Paul Marat at the end of the 

French Revolution, a plot that creates a 

platform for discussion about political 

fanaticism and the fickle nature of the 

mob. 

The audience is always aware that the 

actors are indeed inmates, and that we 

are in a constructed theatre. This 

Brechtian emphasis comes through 

Pleasure tripping 

Aware that it was a Mike Leigh play 

I would be viewing, I entered 

Christ’s New Court theatre in the 

knowledge that the title Ecstasy was 

meant to be ironic. Could this be another 

play about how life is tough when 

you’re poor? Could it be another play 

where very ordinary people doing very 

ordinary things were set up as a spectacle 

for middle class voyeurism? Alas, I was 

not disappointed. The first scene opened 

in a typically depressing bedsit. One by 

one the typically depressing characters 

entered, engaging in typically depressing 

conversation. Whilst I had not expected 

an all-singing, all-dancing cabaret extravaganza 

(see Company! at the ADC this 

week), I was feeling depressed. 

Nevertheless, some rays of light penetrated 

the dark cloud hanging over me. 

The normally angelic Tara Hacking 

became an angel of death from Liverpool 

both in the precariously suspended curtains 

that still expose action behind 

them and in the absent-mindedness of 

one of the inmates who continuously 

gets their words wrong and requires 

increasingly agitated prompting by The 

Herald (convincingly performed by 

Edward Redmayne and Emily Howes). 

So if you enjoy drama that does not disrupt 

theatrical conventions and allows 

you to quietly suspend your disbelief 

then this production is probably not for 

you. 

But if you want to be thrown into an 

experience that will attack all your senses 

and perhaps make you think, then 

The Octagon is the place to be. Tom 

Wiggall’s original score is fantastic, harmony 

and discord surrounding the 

audience as the inmates indeterminately 

wander in and out of the central oval 

space, sometimes even sitting next to 

you or behind you as they contribute, 

(something that begins to become disconcerting). 

My one criticism would be 

that the diction could have been better 

in these choral moments as it was often 

difficult to hear clearly what was being 

said, particularly when actors spoke 

too. 

However, what is striking about this 

production, other than the confident 

acting (Charlotte Thompson as Corday 

i 

called Dawn. Her ability to take on the 

role of a formidable Scouser was vital to 

making the play a success. She was so 

convincing that I suspect there may be 

some Scouse blood in her veins. She 

managed not to descend into stereotype 

but to construct a wholly believable 

three-dimensional character. The other 

notable performance came from Charlie 

Rahtz playing Mick. He managed to 

carry off the role in a convincing and 

unassuming manner, and was perhaps 

the linchpin of the second act. 

Upon opening, the second act almost 

descended into a comedy melée of 

regional accents. On stage at one time 

were a Cockney, two Scousers, an 

Irishman and a man purporting to be 

from the West Country (although I 

couldn’t be sure). I almost expected a 

Scotsman and a Welshman to pitch up at 

any moment. The act took the form of 

an all night drinking session, centered, 

amusingly and inexplicably, on Kaliber 

non-alcoholic beer (props manager 

please take note). Much focus was placed 

on Len (Ivo Stourton). In the play, Len’s 

wife was supposed to have left him; 

much more of him and I may have left 

the play. His performance was inert, 

spiritless and soporific. Let’s just hope he 

was having a bad day. 

His performance was not, however, 

due to poor direction. The set and the 

interaction between the characters on 

stage was excellent, a tribute to the 

i 

is particularly mesmerising), and the 

professionalism, (both of which we 

should take for granted) was the visual 

nature of the piece. Notably the presentation 

of the countless executions during 

the revolution; disturbingly demonstrated 

by inmates wearing neutral 

masks, repeatedly falling through the 

curtains, whilst an intermittent bang 

suggested the action of the guillotine. 

The graphic presentation of the birth of 

Marat is also something to look out for; 

it will definitely make you shuffle in 

your seat if you haven’t started to 

already. 

If you take a trip to The Octagon this 

week (and I suggest you do) then don’t 

expect to come away with a sense of 

conclusion; Sade admits he can “find no 

ending to our play.” The inmates were 

forcibly ushered out of the arena, whilst 

the audience clapped nervously at the 

empty space. But to be a good production 

it does not need resolution. Peter 

Brook (who himself directed this play 

in 1964) said that a good play is one 

that “sends many...messages, often several 

at a time, often crowding, jostling, 

overlapping... The intelligence, the feelings, 

the memory, the imagination are 

all stirred.” If you agree with him, as I 

do, then this is a well-rounded production, 

certainly not one for the sadist. 

Marat/Sade is on at The Octagon, St. Chads 

until Saturday 10th November at 7.45pm 

Tom Kibasi gets to work on some serious Hacking, and is ecstatic 

directing duo of Liz Foote and Maya 

Mailer. However, the distance between 

the stage and the first row of the audience 

(some 12ft in a very small auditorium) 

created a sense of detachment. We 

could look upon the characters and feel 

pity but could not get of sense of what it 

would be like to be in their stead. I felt 

like a voyeur peering through a window 

on to the world of poverty. 

The lesson that Mike Leigh wanted us 

to learn was that poverty confers little or 

no life choices upon those subjected to 

it. We at Cambridge do not suffer from 

this problem and I am glad that I exercised 

my choice to watch Ecstasy. Go and 

see it, but don’t forget the Prozac. 

Ecstacy is on at New Court Theatre, Christ’s 

until 10th November at 7.30pm


A ARTSTHEATRE 


Best company, worst Company 

Tim Stanley likes it when the pretty girls and even the lead man get undressed, but wasn’t so keen on the production 

Agreat test of how good a musical 

is, is to try and whistle a 

tune from it after leaving the 

theatre. I could whistle Dusty 

Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man 

and Kajagoogoo was floating around 

in there somewhere, but Sondheim 

was nowhere to be found. That was 

the problem with Company: it’s a 

nightmare trying to set a play to lift 

music. I enjoyed it at the time, but as 

soon as I left the theatre I quickly forgot 

why. All I can remember is that 

the leading man took his top off at 

one point. 

On the whole the fault doesn’t lie 

with the cast. Vicki Kruger as a tainted 

divorcee struck a perfect note of 

bored indifference – as if her character 

had been raised on the music of 

Sondheim – and dominated the stage 

in every scene she smoked through. 

Francesca Lebens too gave an impressive 

performance in what was to be the 

only amusing scene of the whole play 

when leaving her husband at the altar. 

But among the women my eyes were 

drawn inexorably to Becky Walker, a 

beautiful young actress who had such 

charisma and vitality that I felt obligated 

to stay awake whenever she was 

on stage. 

The leading male, Anthony 

Harrison, was staggeringly attractive. 

He has to be seen to be believed. 

Naturally he can’t hold a note to save 

his life, but the audience was full of 

mothers of the cast who held their collective 

breath whenever he was on the 

stage. Director Jessica Dawes had her 

head screwed on right when she 

assigned the two parts that undress on 

stage to the two most attractive members 

of the cast. They lusted their way 

through Barcelona like a musical porn 

video. 

Not all the members of the cast 

shone like Anthony Harrison’s thighs. 

Lucinda Perkoff didn’t fit the role of 

tomboy Marta and in her thick black 

and white stripped stockings resem- 

Not so funny...? 

Jonathan Styles is disturbed by the joke telling at the ADC late show 

“Slightly random.” A comment overheard 

leaving the ADC, after a performance 

of the late night show Jokes 

Aren't Funny. Not half an hour later, sitting 

at an Apple Mac and trying to draw 

together my own slightly random 

impressions of the evening, I don't think 

it could be summed up better. 

Jokes Aren't Funny begins on the premise 

asserted in its title. What you get is an 

attempt to subvert the obvious and tired 

in comedy. The result is always bizarre, 

and often pretty unnerving. Even now, 

I’m not sure if the American guy sitting 

behind me, shouting out comments and 

laughing a little too loudly, was part of 

the production or not. I’m somewhat 

more certain that a gorilla was sitting in 

the row in front. 

However, it would be misleading to 

give the impression that the show relies 

on purely surreal humour. Quirky as it 

constantly is, there is a sort of logic 

underpinning much of the show and this 

tended to produce the stronger material. 

Nobody, I’m sure, failed to smirk during 

the acoustic guitar ballad describing the 

eating of Prime Minister Blair’s children 

as a necessary outcome of tuition fees. 

Then, tying in with the show’s overall 

theme, a standup comedian emerges 

from a coffin to have the audience 

encouraged to pelt him with fruit by 

another irate actor. 

Inevitably, some sketches were not so 

successful. One other soundbite given by 

a (real) audience member after the performance 

went along the lines of "too 

many cock jokes" and there certainly was 

something of a preoccupation with the 

usual, exhausted bodily functions. This is 

particularly disappointing given the play’s 

intended antithetical relationship to the 

staple of contemporary comedy. 

Those sketches that drew their humour 

from blacker elements, exploring the 

"fine line between comedy and tragedy" 

tended to get too close to crossing that 

line. It’s all well and good to strive against 

the restrictions of political correctness, 

but was I the only one to feel that some 

subjects were just not within the realms 

of humour? Then again, maybe I would 

have been happy to laugh away if it 

weren’t so public. Jokes Aren’t Funny has 

that disquieting edge that truly does 

make you question what does and doesn’t 

constitute comedy. 

Any failings of the show cannot be put 

at the door of the actors, however, who 

articulated the whole performance with 

i 

such admirable confidence and polish. 

Particular mention should go to the central 

comic quartet, Tom Basden, Susanna 

Hislop, Tamzin Paskins and Dan Stevens. 

Given the terminal mediocrity of current 

British comedy, it’s a fine thing to 

come upon a production that really tries 

to invigorate some life into the old dog. 

Progress can’t be made without nudging 

at boundaries and taking risks and Jokes 

Aren’t Funny must be commended for 

doing just that. For this alone, the production 

should receive your support. 

And besides, it’s probably your only 

chance to see Pav Akhtar sharing the 

stage with a Bunny Girl... 

Jokes Aren’t Funny is on at the ADC until 

Saturday at 11.00pm 

bled Bertie Bassett. As she sung about 

the New York trains and buses one was 

certainly reminded of stopping fast 

and the brakes screeching very loudly. 

The problem with Company is not 

the cast: they were near perfect at 

times quite breath-taking. The staging 

was fabulous, the choreography stunning 

and the band delightful. The 

problem is the play. That it was written 

in the seventies shows, though 

theme and content are strangely 

fifties. The plot is at best nostalgic and 

naive. The question, should the lead- 

L ife 

i 

23 

ing actor marry or not is depressingly 

out of date and utterly boring. 

The one mistake Alex Warnock- 

Smith made in his staging was in placing 

a large clock on one of the walls of 

the set. When Harrison isn’t half 

naked it’s tempting to simply watch 

that instead of the action. 

Like the seams on Becky Walker’s 

shirt this play was bursting with talent, 

desperate to get itself heard. I 

want them all to do well and I want 

them all to run and run and run. Just 

not in this show. 

Company is on at the ADC until Saturday at 

7.45pm 

LIFELESS x3 

Jack Thorne tries to breath Life into reviewing 

x3 is Yasmina Reza’s most successful 

play since Art, it started at 

the National, it persuaded Mark 

Rylance back on to a stage that wasn’t 

The Globe, it’s made Reza a reasonable 

amount of money. The reason why it 

hasn’t made her as much money as Art is 

that it’s not that funny. It does have 

slightly more interesting ideas, but it’s 

not as funny as Art. So it hasn’t been as 

successful. And it’s not as good. 

Life is a dinner party. Dates got muddled 

so a married-clever-couple serve 

drinks and no food to nasty people the 

husband thinks are important. We 

watch the scene once, they munch on 

Wotsits and chocolate fingers, and we 

laugh. Then we watch the entire scene 

again. Then we watch the scene a third 

time. We see life three times. It’s not 

quite as dull as it sounds, and neither is 

it Groundhog Day. Each of the three 

incarnations are extremely different. It’s 

still a dinner party, the same people are 

present, the same events happen, but 

everything else changes. Reactions are 

changed, personalities are changed, facts 

are changed, the flavour of the Wotsits 

are changed, the amount of chocolate 

fingers in the box are changed, the outcome 

is changed. 

The three scenes we watch in Life x 3 

are about three different individuals 

picking up the camera and being the 

star of their own film. They make the 

tragedy of the play personal to them, 

they even inflict more tragedy upon 

themselves, and to accommodate that 

they change the flavour of what happened, 

and so we see a different play. 

i 

Reza is attempting to show us the difference 

of the shared experience. And 

there is some enjoyment as an audience 

to be found in trying to work out who 

has the camera when, who stars in 

which scene. She never makes it obvious. 

The first scene is funny, almost like 

Art. But the characters aren’t very 

strong. And, when the distortion effects 

of individual stardom start working the 

play becomes less and less funny and less 

and less interesting. The second scene is 

melancholy, and not very good. The 

final scene is dull: an uninteresting person 

tells us the same story for the third 

time in a tedious and unfunny way. 

Problems with the script are further 

compounded by the production. 

Friction between the original National 

production and this new rep production 

creates unnecessary mess. I am sure the 

spaceship-style scene-changing light and 

sound effects would work well in the 

high-budget National Theatre. Here it 

just looks odd. 

Reza needs to be clever. She is afraid of 

her mind not being noticed. She is upset 

when people laugh at her plays because 

she feels they are ignoring her intellect. 

She doesn’t serve the characters, or the 

play, or the audience, she serves something 

else that she needs to impress and 

she does this through the idea. But I’ve 

now told you the idea, so why go to the 

show? The problem with ideas is that 

they are not plays. Ideas can be 

explained on paper. Plays have life 

which has to be seen on stage. Life x 3 

was dead. 

Life x3 is on at the Arts Theatre until Saturday 

at 7.45, and also at 2.30pm Saturday

24 ARTSFILM 



Thomas Katz comes to life 

Kate McNaughton listens to the Oxford graduate, responsible for the most surreal film of the year 

Climbing up the steps to the 

BAFTA cafe on Piccadilly, in a 

very hung over state (friend’s 

housewarming the night before…), I 

suddenly feel apprehensive: I mean, I’m 

about to interview a real, live film director… 

Luckily, Ben Hopkins is, if anything, 

about as shy (or as hung over?) as 

I am, so my nerves soon settle. We begin 

with a bit of background: 

Ben Hopkins: I did German and 

Italian at Oxford, 87 to 91, and I was a 

schoolteacher until a couple of years ago, 

which is a good job for making short 

films because you get some holidays… I 

lived a very frugal life and saved all my 

money up for the summer holidays when 

I would spend it on making short films. 

Kate McNaughton: Did you have any 

kind of training? 

BH: No. At Oxford I was a big name 

so to speak on the student theatre circuit. 

I thought I would try making a film on 

video and it was dreadful! It was really 

crap… I was already very interested in 

cinema, and I was very frustrated that 

even though my theatre direction immediately 

worked out very nicely and I won 

a lot of awards, and even though I considered 

I knew quite a lot about film, I 

just obviously had no idea how to put 

the film together. So I took the greater 

challenge and got rid of the theatre side 

and just concentrated on film. But I was 

not a natural filmmaker at all, it was 

something I had to learn over a period of 

years, and I did 5 short films before I got 

into the Royal College of Art to do their 

film course. Which now sadly is closed 

down, which is an outrage, but like most 

outrages no-one seems to do anything 

about it. 

But that’s indicative of the lack of 

esteem in which film is held in this country. 

It’s just ignored as an art form. Even 

the industry itself is much more keen 

towards the American concepts of moneymaking 

and so on rather than its art. 

Anyway, I was lucky enough to be there 

when it was open. Luckily my graduation 

film was one of the most successful 

short films of the ‘90s and got me a lot of 

recognition, and fairly quickly after that 

I did my first feature film, called Simon 

Magus, which is very different from 

Thomas Katz. 

Simon Magus was the pinnacle of a personal 

style that I’d been developing 

through my short films, which was a 

slow, very majestic pacing and gradual 

tracking shots, and very luminous closeups: 

a very beautiful style of filmmaking, 

but quite classical. If you don’t like it then 

you’d say turgid, staid, and stuff like 

that… But very old school, very old-fashioned 

in a way. I suppose by the time that 

I’d finished Simon Magus I didn’t want to 

do that anymore. Thomas Katz is a compendium 

of different film styles: silent 

film, up to the MTV pop promo, and 

was mainly for fun, even though there are 

the darker depths of it. If you want to 

find them, they’re there, but basically it’s 

meant to be a very silly film. It’s just 

meant to be entertaining, and aimed at a 

slightly stoned, maybe drunk, studenty 

audience. That’s the ideal public for it. 

KM: So how did that project come 

about? 

BH: Simon Magus was, again, a much 

more conventional film, with fairly star- 

The nine lives of Thomas Katz 

ry people like Ian Holme and Rutger 

Hauer in it, and cost three million 

pounds which is quite a lot for a first 

film. And Thomas Katz, which I shot 

pretty much back-to-back with Simon 

Magus, was quite the opposite: it cost 

£400,000, and was shot on 16mm and 

video, and edited in my spare room... I 

did that with Thomas Katz because I 

knew that the only way I would have 

that kind of artistic freedom was to keep 

it cheap. 

KM: And you’d written the script with 

someone else? 

BH: I wrote it with the actor - his real 

name is Thomas Browne, which is his 

writing name, and his stage name is 

Thomas Fisher. I met Tom at Oxford, he 

acted in one of my plays and we kept in 

touch. We had a very similar sense of 

humour, and I said to him that I wanted 

to do a film that used his plastic abilities 

to become other people. He doesn’t 

become other people in the way a 

method actor becomes other people, he 

retains his Tom-ness, whilst also becoming 

other people, which is ideal for the 

film. And I’d just invented this title, The 

Nine Lives of Thomas Katz, because it 

sounded funny, and then we had to 

decide who these nine characters were, 

and we did that through a process of 

improvisation, getting drunk… And 

then once we had the nine characters we 

had to decide on some kind of story, and 

that took a little while… As you’ve seen 

the story we came up with was pretty 

crazy. I suppose the whole process took 

about three or four years. So a lot of what 

is said by the characters was improvised 

by Tom in one of these sessions. Some of 

it is written by me. And some of it is 

improvised in front of the camera actually 

on the day of shooting. So there’s a fair 

bit of actual improvisation. Some of it 

ended up on the cutting room. 

KM: So, what’s it like being a young 

film director in Britain? 

BH: It’s not so bad for me in that I’m 

very glad that I did languages. I’m much 

more capable of crossing borders. In 

fact, with a couple of my projects I’m 

not even bothering to look for money in 

Britain, it’s just not worth my while. The 

projects I do have in Britain are tied up 

in the usual farce of so-called development 

here, so I take a very dim view of 

the British industry as it is at the 

moment. But luckily I don’t need to be 

in it all the time. But if I was trying to 

be a British director and make the next 

Full Monty, my response would be very 

different. Most people haven’t heard of 

me, I’m very much operating on the 

fringes of the British film industry in 

general. I don’t really fit in. I never have. 

I’ve always been eccentric in its correct 

etymological meaning: outside of the 

centre. I’ve always, as from a kid 

onwards, been a person who defines 

themselves by being different, so I think 

even if Thomas Katz became the norm, I 

would go and make Armageddon - that’s 

me, I think…


A ARTSFILM 


The boys, beaches and beats 

FILM FOCUS: Tom Armitage, Josh Perry, Mark Richards, Tom Smith, Antony Leyton-Thomas, Naomi Leon and Chris Turtle 

At the Union 

A Streetcar named 

Desire 

12 Nov, 9pm 

Vivien Leigh plays Blanche Dubois, an 

ageing southern belle, forced to move in 

with her sister Stella after being 

drummed out of her own home town 

for dallying with a seventeen year old. 

However, sparks soon fly between fragile 

Blanche and her bear-like brother in law 

(Marlon Brando), forcing Stella to 

choose with whom her allegiances really 

lie. The film never really escapes its origins 

as a stage play but Brando's careerdefining 

performance as Stella's brutal, 

sweating, sinewy husband, makes it 

essential viewing. 

CT 

This week at the 

Arts Picture House 

A Hard Day’s Night 

9 Nov, 10.40pm 

Starring four likely lads from 

Liverpool; John, Paul, George and 

Ringo (they were quite big in the 

Sixties, apparently); A Hard Day’s Night 

is a slice of pure pop escapism. Okay, so 

there isn’t really much of a story to 

speak of – the film basically follows the 

Fab Four through a series of skits in 

which they flee hordes of screaming 

girls, give sarcastic interviews and generally 

lark about. What holds it all 

together is not just the belting pop 

tunes and ladish charisma of its stars 

(especially George), but director 

Richard Lester’s freewheeling, continuously 

inventive style. Stealing a whole 

host of cinematic tricks from the 

French New Wave, the film’s restless 

exuberance is utterly infectious. 

Whether you’re a screaming Beatles fan 

or not, this movie is truly ace. 

TS 

North by Northwest 

The nine lives of 

Thomas Katz 

Director: Ben Hopkins 

Starring: Thomas Fisher 

Certificate 15 

Running time: 87 minutes 

UK/Germany 2000 

Showing at Arts Picture House 

El Mariachi 

9 Nov, 10.30pm 

Robert Rodriguez shows just what you 

can do with $7,000, a load of friends, 

and a couple of machine guns borrowed 

from the police. El Mariachi is a lowbudget 

legend: a movie shot on the director’s 

credit card that won awards at 

Sundance and shot Rodriguez into the 

Hollywood spotlight. Despite its remake 

(as Desperado) and Rodriguez’s subsequent 

hits, this is definitely still worth a 

watch - it shows that budget can’t hide 

talent. A simple tale, of a traveling musician 

who gets confused with an assassin 

who carries his guns in a guitar case, El 

Mariachi places its emphasis firmly on 

action. There are some great action 

sequences, some strong acting from its 

amateur cast, but it’s Rodrgiuez who’s the 

star: he’s created a humorous script, 

strong direction and editing that is nothing 

less than dynamite. El Mariachi manages, 

on a fraction of a major film’s budget, 

what so many other movies lack: fun. 

It’s a riot from start to finish, and as such, 

essential for anyone interested in any 

aspect of filmmaking. Inspirational. 

TA 

Singin’ in the Rain 

13 Nov, 9.15pm 

It shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t. But 

it does. With knobs on. Co-directed by 

and starring the prolific Gene Kelly, this 

film ranks deservedly highly among 

Hollywood’s great glories of yesteryear. 

A catchy score, some stunning choreography, 

and some impeccably timed 

screen comedy from Donald O’Connor, 

combine to create a shamelessly fun tale 

of the rise of the ‘talkie’ in cinema. It’s 

about as profound as a packet of cornflakes, 

but it’s timeless, and still worth 

watching 

ALT 

To be honest, dear reader, The 

Nine Lives of Thomas Katz is 

pretty much an impossible film 

to review. Go and see it for yourself, and 

you will understand what I mean. Since 

these are the august pages of Varsity, 

however, I must make an attempt. 

The film opens with a somewhat oddly 

dressed man waving down a taxi on the 

M25. He has just crawled out of the 

sewer, and soon reveals himself to have 

the unusual power of taking over people’s 

College Films 

Amores Peros 

11 Nov, 7.00 & 10.30pm, John’s 

Or, in English, ‘Love’s a Bitch’, 

Alejandro González Inarritu debuted 

last year with this scorching Spanish 

triptych. The tagline was “Love. 

Betrayal. Death.” And there’s really no 

better way of summing it up. This film 

proved that Tarantino isn’t the only 

director who can make music with 

interlocking vignettes, taking as its subject 

the misadventures of three inhabitants 

of Mexico City. There are some 

astonishingly violent dog fighting 

scenes, but it’s through these that this 

sensitive, blackly funny, thoughtful film 

makes its point. See it. Now. 

ALT 

North by Northwest 

11 & 12 Nov, 9pm,Trinity 

A Hard Day’s night 

Roger Thornhill is a wanted man. For 

starters, mysterious criminals are after 

him, and then to make matters worse, 

the police join the chase when he is 

framed for murder. With nowhere to 

turn, he has to run for his life whilst 

simultaneously attempting to prove his 

innocence. However, it would be a 

shame to reveal any more, given that 

much of the pleasure in watching 

Hitchcock’s tale of mistaken identity 

derives from not knowing what will happen 

next. All his usual directorial trademarks 

are on display: the smooth talking 

lead (Cary Grant as Thornhill); the 

breathtaking blonde (Eva Marie Saint); 

the directorial cameo… Yet the main 

attraction is the utterly compelling and 

unpredictable plot. Thornhill’s words on 

first being kidnapped are emblematic of 

the whole film: “Don’t tell me where 

we’re going, surprise me.” 

JP 

souls and bodies. As he goes through 

these nine lives (taxi driver, Minister of 

Fish, tube controller…), he wreaks 

increasing havoc on the city of London, 

and begins to seem very close to bringing 

about a strange kind of apocalypse. The 

only person who might be able to stop 

him is the blind, psychic Chief of 

Metropolitan police. As the latter puts it, 

“Little do they know that London is a 

city built on a mystic network. London is 

full of forces we know nothing about.” 

Seven Samurai 

13 Nov, 8pm, Corpus 

Kirosawa’s epic Sixteenth Century tale of 

rural warfare has long been considered one 

of the all-time greats. A lengthy running 

time of 160 minutes might seem surprising 

given the apparent simplicity of the 

plot: an impoverished village hires a group 

of Samurai to help defend itself against the 

marauding bandits who invade and steal 

their harvest each year. Yet it is far more 

than a generic ‘Eastern Western’. 

Employing what Kurosawa describes as a 

“tapestry” storyline, the focus fluctuates 

between Toshiro Mifune’s sparkling central 

performance as the complex Samuraiwannabe 

Kikuchiyo and the tension in 

relations between the Samurai and the villagers, 

before culminating in a dazzling, 

one hour battle scene. It’s a great film with 

an endearing soundtrack, but make sure 

you’re sitting comfortably… 

JP 

Before Night Falls 

15 Nov, 9pm, John’s 

Director Julian Schnabel (Basquait) seems 

to specialize in biopics about individuals 

who don’t fit into their native societies 

and who are compelled by an urge to create. 

His latest offering, Before Night Falls, 

charts the life of the homosexual Cuban 

To try and even describe its plot, however, 

hardly does justice to what is probably 

one of the most original and genuinely 

off-the-wall films ever made. 

Think Monty Python or Surrealism, and 

then think something completely different. 

The film is a masterful collage of 

different styles, from silent movie to 

MTV video through to Fritz Lang. 

Nevertheless, it still retains a very distinctive 

overarching feel, mainly 

achieved through its very weird sense of 

25 

writer Reinaldo Arenas from his childhood 

poverty in pre-revolutionary 

Holguin, through his persecution under 

Castro’s regime and bittersweet exile to 

America in 1980. Schnabel’s artistic flair 

is imprinted all over the film’s direction; it 

is visually stunning, evoking the hardedged 

colours, and often bitter taste of 

life, in communist Cuba. Soulful 

Spaniard Javier Bardem (Jamon Jamon) 

really inhabits the role of Arenas, with a 

raw grace and incredible sensitivity, and 

Sean Penn and Johnny Depp make 

unlikely cameo appearances. Highly recommended. 

NL 

The Piano 

15 Nov, 10pm, Christ’s 

The Piano was one of those films that 

ambushed the Oscars and walked away 

with most of the awards; a film that was 

released at the right time to an Academy 

looking to bolster their intellectual 

standing. It’s alright; the acting – from 

Sam Neill, Holly Hunter, and Harvey 

Keitel – is as expected; the ideas are 

interesting; and the Nyman score is suitably 

memorable, but there is something 

missing. It all seems a little too much of 

a period piece, a smaller film from a leftfield 

director that got the right backing 

and was thrust into a spotlight too 

bright for it. 

MR 

Seven Samurai 

humour, and its brilliant filming of 

London as a city. Thomas Fisher, as the 

eponymous (anti-)hero, is incredibly 

versatile and funny, and surrounded by 

an excellent cast of weird and wonderful 

characters. This is independent cinema 

at its best: different, inventive, and 

vibrant. This is what the Arts Picture 

House should be screening all the time. 

As I said at the beginning of this review, 

just go and see it. 

Kate McNaughton

26 

SPORT 

Women’s football 

The Blues found sweet revenge with 

a 5-0 league win over Watford last 

Sunday. Though Christina Atchison 

started the scoring just after halftime 

following a quality pass from Sarah 

Ambrose, Mandy Wainwright led all 

scorers with three goals and 

Charlotte Cope tipped in another 

from a Susan Rea free kick. 

Cambridge will play again this coming 

Sunday at Fenners, 2:00pm KO, 

against Stafford Rangers in the 

Second Round of the Women’s FA 

Cup. Supporters always welcome. 

Susan Rea 

Basketball 

Though the first division had a weekend 

off, the University basketball 

leagues continued this week with a 

full set of fixtures. The results were : 

Division 2: 

Hughes – Corpus 20-0 (W/O) 

Pembroke – Christs 42-20 

Tit Hall – Wolfson 71-51 

Jesus – Robinson 58-22 

Division 3: 

Kings – Clare 41-21 

Catz – Peterhouse 31-30 

Downing – Magdalene 36-25 

Selwyn – Sidney 54-47 

Zenon Severis 

Rowing 

The University Fours races were raced 

last week over Monday to Thursday 

afternoons. Eventual winners of the 

men’s 1st coxed division were Christ’s 

1, whose second boat was beaten by 

Emmanuel 2 to win the final of the 

second division. Of the few entries to 

men’s coxless fours, LMBC came out 

on top after a no-show from 1st & 

3rd in the final. Winning women’s 

four was Jesus 1, and winners of the 

women’s second division were Caius 

2. Generally, the standard of rowing 

was typical of the time of year, with 

most races being won or lost by large 

margins, even in the shorter side by 

side women’s races. 

Charlie Ford 

Football 

The Blues continued their impressive 

start to the BUSA campaign last 

week beating Nottingham Trent by 

six goals to one. Notts were previously 

unbeaten but on the back of 

his previous BUSA clutch of goals 

(five vs APU in a 7–1 victory), 

Glamocak took four with Warburton 

and Dimmock scoring the fifth and 

sixth respectively. 

Tom Warburton 

Women’s Hockey 

The Blues suffered a futile trip to 

Cardiff this week, losing to UWIC. 

Despite first half pressure, the score 

was 1-1 at half time. The Blues 

enjoyed many chances but some controversial 

refereeing eventually led to 

a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the 

Welsh. 

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FLYING HIGH SPORTS 

Cross Country 

Ellen Leggate 

Cambridge University Cross-Country 

Club, the Hare & Hounds, was once 

again in fine form this weekend as the 

runners took on teams from the RAF 

and the Eastern Counties on a fastrunning 

course in Huntingdon. 

Cambridge athletes were individual 

victors in both the men’s and women’s 

competitions and took the men’s team 

event, while just narrowly being beaten 

into second in the women’s team 

competition. 

On a fast course over flat parkland, 

track specialist fresher Rowan Hooper 

(St. Edmund’s) led in the men’s race, 

running in a controlled and confident 

manner, powering away from his nearest 

Eastern Counties rival on the last 

of a four lap race. Fresher James 

Mason (Selwyn) was second scorer for 

the Cambridge team, finishing with a 

blistering last lap to bring him home 

in fourth place, just ahead of fellow 

Cambridge runners Andy Baddeley 

(Caius), Matt Robinson (Hughes 

Hall), captain Darren Talbot (Darwin) 

and Ben Davies (Trinity Hall). The 

final result placed Cambridge as first 

team, the first victory over the RAF 

and Eastern Counties since 1995. 

In the women’s event, Cambridge 

runners Ellen Leggate (Peterhouse) and 

Julia Bleasdale (Pembroke) were never 

challenged for the first two positions, 

opening out a huge lead over the rest of 

the field. The team was completed by 

notable performances from Nicky 

McDougal (Downing) and Claire 

Willer (Robinson), who battled hard 

against a strong contingent of RAF and 

Eastern Counties runners. The team 

finished in second place overall but just 

two points down from the event winners, 

the Eastern Counties. 

The strength in depth of the 

Cambridge athletes was also clear from 

the start, as Cambridge vests well outnumbered 

those of the RAF and 

Eastern Counties. With only three 

weeks to go before the second, third, 

fourth and fifth teams race off against 

their Oxford rivals in the Varsity 

Match, Cambridge seem to be hitting 

unassailable form. 

SHORTS 

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of this voucher) when two or more spend 

over £10 per person on food from our main menu. 

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BUSA joy 

Women’s squash 

Sian Lewis 

The first round of the BUSA Premier 

League Squash Tournament took place 

in Exeter on 27th and 28th October. 

This tournament, which runs in two 

parts, is made up of those university 

teams who finished in the last eight the 

previous year. Having finished joint 

third in March 2001, Cambridge 

women are keen to repeat their BUSA 

success this season. 

Playing in the southern division of 

the tournament, Cambridge were to 

face Exeter and Surrey on the Saturday 

and the formidable UWIC Academy of 

Squash on the Sunday. With five girls 

on each team the matches are arranged 

with numbers 5 and 4 first, followed by 

1, 3 and then 2. This means that in a 

close contest all will not depend upon 

the first string match. Thankfully the 

match against Exeter was won fairly 

comfortably 4-1, with 3-0 victories at 

2, 4 and 5. Newcomer to the team 

Lorraine Jones, finished the match 

without dropping a point against an 

experienced Exeter player. 

Surrey proved far easier competition; 

the close 3-2 matches fought by numbers 

1 and 3 in the morning against 

Exeter did not repeat themselves in the 

afternoon. Surrey were easily dispatched 

and the team got a good 

night’s sleep before meeting the Welsh 

university in the morning. 

Cambridge met UWIC at the same 

competition last year in Cardiff. With 

former number one Wendy Hiscox, a 

senior county player, then on the team, 

Cambridge managed one victory 

against UWIC but lost the others with- 

SPORT 


27 


out much of a fight. This year numbers 

1 and 2 for UWIC again proved far too 

strong for the girls to make much of an 

impression, though games were won by 

Kelly Conn at 3 and by Nicky Dee at 4 

with Lizzy McCosh also unsettling her 

opponent at 5. 

The two victories on Saturday mean 

the team finished second overall, one 

place better than in the same competition 

last year. Cambridge thus progress 

to the higher division of the Premier 

League for the competition at the 

beginning of December in 

Birmingham. The format here is again 

a round robin of four teams and, on the 

basis of this, seeding positions will be 

established for when the Premier 

League teams meet the Merit League 

teams in the knock-out rounds next 

term. 

Welsh leeky 

Rugby Union 

46 Cambridge 

18 Crawshay’s 

Hilary Weale 

Crawshay’s celebrated their first pre- 

Varsity Match visit by taking a 13-0 

lead within the first 23 minutes, two 

penalties and a conversion by standoff 

Stuart Lawrence and a try by former 

international Neil Boobyer. 

Consisting almost entirely of Welsh 

Premier Division players, Crawshay’s 

deft passing and pace caused early 

problems for the Blues but they soon 

regrouped. Finding themselves in the 

opposition’s half, patient recycling 

eventually opened a gap that centre 

Marco Rivaro cut, passing to Ali 

Newmarch for the try. This galvinised 

the Blues’ efforts, and for the remainder 

of the second quarter they starved 

the Welshmen of possession and territory, 

demonstrating an impressive 

level of discipline. Two penalty lineouts 

in the left-hand corner both led 

to tries from the subsequent rolling 

mauls, the first for captain and no. 8 

Mike Count, and the second to James 

Johnson, each converted by Simon 

Amor. Minutes later, a scintillating 

run from halfway by winger James 

Baker severed Crawshay’s defence 

again, giving the Blues a 24-13 halftime 

lead that they well deserved. 

Photo: Rowan Huppert 

The visitors certainly had more to 

offer, as the opening exchanges and 

later threatening moments showed. 

Conceding an early penalty didn’t help 

their cause, but some of the most 

exciting instances during the match 

were caused by the sheer pace and elusiveness 

of their right wing Karl Rees. 

Though the pass after one such run 

failed to go to hand, the try soon after, 

by blindside Dan McShane, had 

appeared inevitable. Crawshay’s also 

upped the tenacity of their defence, 

and a steady drizzle put paid to several 

expansive Cambridge moves as the 

ball became greasy. A lapse in discipline 

saw more penalties go 

Crawshay’s way, but to the Blues’ credit 

they conceded no more points, and 

instead reasserted themselves with sensible 

kicks for territory. That they were 

able to do so also says a lot about their 

fitness. 

Nor did they relax their attacking 

efforts. On 66 minutes, replacement 

scrum-half Mark Chapman-Smith 

touched down after a storming charge 

by Rivaro down the left flank. The 

game by now beyond them, 

Crawshay’s were determined to score 

again, but instead Cambridge broke 

upfield with the ball and Ed Mallett 

eventually scored. Similar circumstances 

led to a true breakaway try by 

Baker, who outstripped his pursuers 

and sidestepped the covering scrumhalf 

to score under the posts. 

Nottingham spiked 

Volleyball 

3 Cambridge 

0 Nottingham 

Richard White 

Cambridge’s male volleyballers opened 

their account for the season with a convincing 

sweep of Nottingham in a match 

which was over in less than one hour’s 

playing time. The game was the second of 

ten qualifying matches which the Light 

Blues must play in order to qualify for the 

last sixteen knockout round of the BUSA 

championships. 

After an eventful journey which seemed 

to take in most of the sports venues in and 

around Nottingham, Cambridge finally 

arrived at the University Sports Centre 

with a team depleted by unavailability 

(Pierre Briguet-Lamarre, Chris Thornton, 

Andy Lynn, Soren Koeppe) and injury 

(Rich Weinberg). However Japanese outside 

attacker Ken Kato was available for 

his first match for the Light Blues, and the 

Cambridge coach gave him a debut 

alongside captain Quentin Ramasse. Dan 

Escott and Jean Jacquet played middle 

blocker with Anthony Reynolds at the 

plate and Dan Roy opposite. Denis Zuev 

again took on the libero position. 

Preliminary discussions with 

Nottingham’s star hitter Chris Anderson 

revealed that the home side felt themselves 

to be stronger than the previous 

year’s team. The early exchanges seemed 

to bear this out, as Cambridge opposite 

Roy was resoundingly blocked on his first 

attack. However he responded superbly, 

going to the line with the ball and taking 

the Light Blues to 9-3 with his jump 

serve. As the Nottingham setter struggled 

with his distribution to the outside, 

another run of serves from Reynolds drew 

Cambridge to 19-9, and a series of sideouts 

ended the set. 

The same unit began game two, and 

more probing serves from Reynolds 

gained Cambridge a 5-0 advantage. A balanced 

Cambridge offence, with Escott 

and Kato particularly effective, looked 

likely to win another set easily at 17-12. 

However the Light Blues then became 

unnecessarily sloppy, conceding points to 

off-speed and gentle roll shots which they 

had hitherto defended without alarm. 

Despite the coach using both time-outs 

and bringing in Christoph Sele for 

Ramasse to strengthen the passing, some 

strong spin serving from Nottingham’s 

Anderson gave his side set points at 24- 

22. But good serving from Jacquet and 

two outstanding diving saves from Kato 

drew Cambridge back to parity, and then 

to victory 26-24. 

Game three began with Nottingham 

looking the more focused team, and taking 

a 9-6 advantage before Cambridge 

came back to tie the score at 16. Sele again 

replaced Ramasse, and a run of five serves 

Water warfare 

Water polo 

9 Cambridge 

2 ULU (match abandoned) 

Alex Starling 

Innocent bystanders who happened to be 

at the University of London Union 

(ULU) pool at the weekend might well 

have mistaken this first away fixture for 

the Blues for a different sport altogether, 

or even an illegal code of an ultimate 

combat discipline. As it was, several of 

the London players had probably misread 

‘ULU’ for ‘ZULU’ and took it upon 

themselves to act as though of the warrior 

tribe. 

Despite fielding new players, 

Cambridge, last season’s BUSA finalists, 

were expecting to win this fixture. Full 

Blue and 1996 captain Matt ‘Bloater’ 

Wiseman, back in the team after a time 

in the corporate wilderness, got 

Cambridge off to a great start, tearing 

into the ULU defence, his quick hands 

allowing current captain Russ Fuller to 

humiliate their ‘keeper at his near post. 

Further goals from Scales, Tausig and 

Fuller again allowed Cambridge to race 

into a 4-0 lead. 

Unable to make any inroads into 

Cambridge by playing Water Polo, some 

members of the ULU team attempted to 

swing things their way with a few flailing 

fists. Robinson’s Billy Gomersall was 

punched repeatedly by a ULU player, 

resulting in a bloodied lip and a bruised 

jaw. While this offence went unpunished, 

the ULU number 12 was ejected (sent 

off) for punching Cambridge’s Hickman 

in the head. 

As the fighting got worse, the Water 

Polo continued as a bit of a side show. 

Cambridge resisted being brought down 

to their level and extended their lead to 7- 

2 by the end of the third quarter with fine 

goals from Fuller, White and Wiseman. 

Cambridge were now completely in control 

of the Water Polo, although with an 

ever increasing number of battle scars. 

Despite repeated warnings to keep a lid 

on their tempers (the match, after all, 

being a ‘friendly’), two further 

Cambridge goals (scored by Hickman 

and debutant Scott) made ULU’s 

Russian number six completely lose the 

plot after being humiliated by triple-half 

blue Gavin White’s strong defence. 

Catching White deliberately with his 

from Ken Kato gave the scoreline a comfortable 

look behind great digging from 

libero Zuev. Mathias Klaeui debuted in 

place of Dan Roy, and marked his return 

to the side immediately by crushing a line 

kill off the shoulder of the helpless 

defender. Cambridge wrapped up the set 

25-19 to take the match. 

The Cambridge coach reflected after the 

game: “This was by no means a great performance, 

but the whole team is happy to 

have recorded a win, particularly after last 

week’s disappointment. Our blocking was 

much improved and the team looks to be 

starting to gel. Anthony Reynolds ran the 

team well, and his understanding with 

Dan Roy is already impressive; once we 

get our setters using the one-tempo optimally 

we’ll be pretty hard to stop.” 

Dan Roy again headed all scorers with 

22 points, followed by Dan Escott with 

ten. Cambridge’s next match is a home 

fixture against Birmingham on 

Wednesday November 7th at Linton 

Village College. 

elbow, he followed through with a punch 

that broke the Cambridge player’s nose. 

As White floated, dazed, shipping blood 

from the open wound in his face, the 

other players quickly gathered around 

and the situation became highly unstable, 

with some players having to be restrained 

from turning the incident into all out 

warfare. 

The referee had no option but to call 

off the rest of the game. Despite this, it 

was a good result for Cambridge, who 

coped very well in difficult circumstances, 

scoring some great goals and 

refusing to lower themselves to the level 

of their opposition. Captain (and vet) 

Fuller was typically concise: “We played 

well. I’m off to inject some cows.” BUSA 

first round takes place in Warwick in 

December: the Blues will be hoping to go 

through to the quarter finals despite 

being in a tough group that contains 

three of last year’s top four teams.

TRACTOR BOYS PLOUGHED UP 

Hockey 

2 Cambridge 

1 Ipswich & ES 

Jenny Taylor 

You can’t enjoy a rainbow without first 

enduring the rain and on Saturday the 

Blues certainly deserved their pot of gold. 

Having lost three games by a one-goal 

margin, the hockey boys were hoping 

their strict diet of lucky charms would 

reap some rewards. 

However from the push back, the first 

half was fraught with frustration. Ipswich 

and East Suffolk dominated the 

encounter with puritanical possession. 

Cambridge could not circumvent the 

Ipswich midfield, continually finding and 

running into opposition sticks. Yet the 

Ipswich inbreds were devoid of any invention 

in attack, as their strikers persisted 

with insular patterns and rarely tested the 

might of Mark Celenk in goal. The Blues 

began to vent their vexation as Captain 

Ian McClive orchestrated a sustained 

offensive from midfield, unleashing Rob 

Fulford and Jamie Parker with ever 

increasing success. One such foray found 

Fulford spectacularly fouled by the 

Suffolk sheepherding sweeper and led to a 

penalty corner. The usual precision of 

Cambridge’s pernicious p-corner routine 

wasn’t up to scratch however and the 

Blues were unable to make a dent in the 

scoreline. 

With twenty minutes played, Lady Luck 

seemingly snubbed the <strong>students</strong> as 

Ipswich finally broke the deadlock with 

fluke rather than flair. A speculative hit 

from Ipswich’s right-winger, Jethro Tull, 

found a foot that finally undid the Blues 

imperial defence and fell to a fortunate 

forward to score from a yard out. With 

the half time whistle, the Blues rallied 

round their coach, Charlie Chuckles 

Bannister, who focused Cambridge’s fuming 

frustrations. 

The Blues went looking for their rainbow 

and began to bungle less in the bustle 

of midfield. A break away charge by 

Ipswich up the right was dealt with swiftly 

by Neil Wilson who swooped like a 

giant eagle to stop a certain goal. Time 

though was running out so it was relieving 

that Gareth Kenny stepped forward with 

a mere ten minutes remaining. The Kiwi’s 

crunch ball released Stevie Sweet whose 

sauntering run resulted in another penalty 

corner. With Paul Bevan on the subs 

bench, Rusty Abel stepped up to push out 

the ball. Abel proved his worth as a powerful 

injector and squeezed off an inch 

perfect delivery. Rob Fulford’s drag flick 

flew like a tomahawk missile into a Red 

Cross facility in Kabul and was slung 

around the goal by the elastic recoil of the 

inside side-netting. 

The Blues had the bit between their 

teeth and all they had to do was bite it. In 

the last minute, Jamie Parker used his skill 

and guile to force an opening for his 

trademark back hand shot. Parker let loose 

a ferocious finish that was surely going to 

be saved until the amiable Ali Arshad 

guided it over the flailing farmer. The 

umpires brought down the curtain on a 

match that had all the markings of a 

crowd pleaser. 

Ian McClive was quick to give credit 

where it was due and commented, “The 

spirit and determination shown on the 

pitch is a true reflection of the comaradery 

that we share off the pitch.” He added, 

“We train very hard and are consequently 

very fit. Without that fitness we wouldn’t 

be able to keep going longer than most 

other teams and couldn’t have capitalized 

in the last fifteen minutes. That was a 

truly top gun performance.” 

An irksome Ipswich were inconsolable 

while Lady Luck was off out with the 

Blues boys to be suitably wined and dined. 

Divine justice: Jesus show no mercy 

Rugby Union 

8 Jesus 

7 St John’s 

Nick King 

Twelve months ago I wrote my first Varsity 

article on this very same fixture. Over the 

past year much has changed in the 

University and in the outside world but 

the vehemence of the rivalry held between 

these two fine college rugby teams remains 

intact. And, as it always has and always 

will, it makes for exciting rugby from both 

a playing and a spectating point of view. 

Right from the off, it was clear that both 

sides were fully wound up for the match 

and the immediate determination of all 

the players was made all too obvious by 

the hardness of the hits in defensive tackling 

and the aggression of the attacking 

sides. Despite Jesus taking an early lead, a 

penalty duly converted by fullback Mike 

Hill, much of the first half was controlled 

by the away team. In particular the scrummaging 

seemed to be going the way of 

John’s and the domination of their forwards 

was responsible for securing them a 

try midway through the half. A rolling 

maul established on the Jesus line eventually 

allowed John’s to break free of the 

Jesus defence and touch down. A perfectly 

weighted conversion by Humphries 

allowed John’s to take a 7-3 lead, which is 

how the first half finished. 

The second half saw the Jesus pack come 

out with a greater air of determination, 

more focus and a steel to their play which 

opened up the match. As both lineouts 

and scrums were more evenly contested 

and less possession was lost in the loose, 

the Jesus backs were given the opportunity 

to run with the ball. One such breakaway 

by Mark Scarfe almost saw a try; a 

60-yard run being cruelly curtailed as the 

last John’s man dragged him to the 

ground. Nevertheless, from this move 

came a period of sustained Jesus pressure 

and the eventual winning score. A forward 

move led to the ball being passed out 

along the backs and the Jesus skipper Tom 

Craven being able to touch down and give 

his team the lead 8-7. 

No conversion was attempted because 

the kicker was unable to find his kicking 

tee, said to be hidden by the John’s support, 

and a minute was counted. Having 

stretched over the limit, through no fault 

of his own, Hill was told he could make 

no kick. Whether or not the tale of the 

John’s college members hiding the tee is 

true, and I doubt it despite being a Jesuan, 

it is hard to find anything positive to say 

about their vocal support. Urging on your 

team to play harder and better is one thing 

but the sort of pressure put on Jesus hooker, 

Brian Fitzherbert, when making lineout 

throws was outrageous. There is a 

pretty well marked divide between support 

and childish, unsportsmanlike cheating 

and there was no doubt which side of 

this divide the John’s fans fell. No wonder 

the referee had to ask their men away from 

the side of the pitch time and time again. 

My small rant (please forgive me reader!) 

should not detract from the players of St 

John’s for they played hard, fair and with 

pride in their College. On many occasions 

they put themselves on the line to render 

the strong Jesus backline running harmless. 

Powerful centre movements by Jamie 

Franklin and Owen Scrimgeour were dis- 

Photo: Catherine Harrison 

played and in one such came a Jesus 

touchdown by Scrimgeour, disallowed for 

the referee was poorly positioned and 

believed the ball to be held up. 

With three minutes left on the clock, it 

looked as though the repercussions of this 

could be all too serious as John’s were 

awarded a relatively simple penalty for an 

illegal Jesus tackle. Admittedly with the 

sort of pressure rarely experienced in college 

rugby on his shoulders, the John’s 

kicker was cruelly only able to slice it wide 

to leave Jesus ahead. 

In a team performance so solid and 

committed as that of Jesus RUFC it is difficult 

to single out players for specific 

mention but particularly David Ingall 

found himself always in the thick of action 

and having to make some huge tackles. 

The list could go on but, for the sake of 

neutral readers, it won’t!

John's students urinate on staircase and Corpus' sexual ... - Varsity

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